Neophiliactic Bull + Psychotic Cow = True Love
by spittlepig
Summary: CHAPTER TWENTY is UP and RUNNING and i will really miss this story :( but i vow to write about more things!!!! I will update SOON!!!
1. Welcome To Heaven, Please Take A Number ...

TITLE : Neophiliactic Bull + Psychotic Cow = True Love  
AUTHOR : Ananova Crowe ||^_^||   
AKA : An Old Cow Gone Mad  
  
VOICE OVER: "Three months ago, I was the center of one of the biggest flukes of modern love in America's history. Heart-stricken over the "Old Bull Gone To Greener Pastures" - if you will - I wrote a column for a men's magazine to please my best friend. Little did I know that it would become the hottest topic this side of the barnyard fence. And little did I know that in the midst of this propaganda sucking article, lay a key, a key which unlocked the truth, the truth that not all men were back-stabbing morons, only some of them. And to this truth, I found love in the very last place I would ever want to look…   
  
***********   
  
  
CHAPTER I -   
Welcome To Heaven, Please Take A Number And We Will Be With You In A Moment   
  
"Where is he?!" Jane Goodale screamed into the man's face, her fiery eyes burning deep into his head as if his mind would tell her faster than his lips.  
  
"Who?" The man choked out of his constricted throat, having trouble speaking through the iron grip on his smock collar, the little woman nearly lifting him off the ground.  
  
"Eddie Alden. Where is he?" Her eyes burned with anger, but tears glazed them over, worry utterly apparent.   
  
"I…I don't know ma'am, you'll have to ask the receptionist…" The airborne doctor said as she threw him to the ground and out of the way, her high heels clicking roughly across the gleaming floor as she made a direct line to the reception desk, god help those who were in her way.  
  
"Excuse me," she spat out coldly, even before the large, black receptionist looked up from her computer screen. "You have to tell me where Eddie Alden is." Jane began to shift her weight from one foot to another in impatience, her fingernails clicking nervously on the reception desk.   
  
"Who?" The large woman said slowly, looking up at her from behind a pair of square rimmed glasses that looked almost perfect to her reception-motifed clothing with the flowery undershirt and knit jacket.   
  
"Eddie Alden, he's about six-foot-three, has dark, short hair. He was brought in about thirty minutes ago." Jane said quickly, her grasp on her slippery patience slipping that much more.  
  
"May I ask who you are?" The black receptionist said even more slowly, idly sliding her glasses from her face as she squinted up at Jane with beady eyes hidden beneath folds of skin.  
  
"I'm his fiancée!" Jane said hurriedly, her teeth grinding with rage in the back of her jaw.   
  
Suddenly, the dark woman's face turned to amazement as she leaned back in her large, padded chair. "Hey, aren't you that lady?-" She began, but was suddenly cut off.  
  
"Yes! I'm that lady! The one on the fucking Diana Robert's Show who made up the stupid Cow Theory! Now can I please find out where my fucking fiancé is or do I have to find him my fucking self?!" She screamed, tears streaming down her face freely.  
  
Jane ignored the few turned heads as she watched the large receptionist recoil back in her chair and think twice to sink back and hide in her rolls.   
  
"It will be just a moment." The receptionist said when she finally spoke, immediately dislodging her gaze from Jane's blazing eyes and switching them to her computer screen, her fingers erratic over the keyboard.  
  
Jane sighed, pushing back her anger as she turned and leaned the small of her back against the lip of the desk, connecting gazes with one of the astonished pedestrians who had happened to walk by in the midst of her screaming.  
  
"What are you looking at?" Jane hissed, smiling callously as the woman suddenly looked even more shocked, as if she were staring into the face of the devil, and immediately dropped her eyes and walked hurriedly away.  
  
"Um, Miss Alden?" The receptionist caught her attention at the new name, and she immediately spun on her heel. "What?"  
  
"Mr. Alden is still in surgery." The woman murmured. "Where?" Jane leaned over the desk, putting her tear-streaked face inches from the woman and looking deeply into her dark eyes.   
  
"Fi-Fifth Floor, right across from the elevator." The woman murmured again, her voice restricted.   
  
"Thank you." Jane called over her shoulder as she sped off to the elevator, barely avoiding colliding with people who were unfortunate enough to cross paths with her.  
  
After a walk that had seemed too long, she finally reached the elevator and crammed herself in with a whole bunch of other people.  
  
Her feet shifted nervously beneath her as the elevator seemed to crawl from one floor to the next, an eternity until the doors binged open and she squeezed out of the packed elevator, her body shaking uncontrollably.  
  
She made another straight line for the doors across the hall marked:  
  
Operating Room  
Hospital Personnel Only  
  
Ignoring the stenciled forbiddance, she pushed roughly through the doors and stomped swiftly down the hall, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.  
  
As she turned a corner, she nearly knocked over a blue garbed doctor with excessive amounts of blood coating his smock and his upheld rubber gloves.  
  
"Woah!" The man beamed, carefully avoiding getting blood onto Jane's business suit. Shimmering green eyes peeked out from between a white mouth cover and his blue shower cap. "Where do you think you're going?"  
  
"Is Eddie Alden in there?" She choked out, ninety-nine percent sure that he was, yet ninety-nine percent regretting that she had asked.  
  
"The guy who got hit by the car?" The doctor asked unwaveringly, carefully keeping his bloody self between Jane and the Operating Room doors. He didn't see her eyes harden at his apathetic words, or else he gave no sign of it. "A tall guy? With short black hair?" He described as if he were describing a lost dog.  
  
"Yes!" Jane hissed, all patience slipping out from beneath her feet, and she could feel herself falling.   
  
"There were some complications, he's got massive internal bleeding and we had to remove his spleen, it's going to be a while till he's back together again." He said matter-of-factly, his eyes seeming to smile.  
  
Jane stumbled back as if she had just been hit in the face with a bag of bricks, her breath becoming dangerously shallow and her eyesight turning fuzzy. She stumbled to regain her balance as she raised a shaking hand to her head, trying unsuccessfully to regain her composure.  
  
"Bu-? Wha-? How?…" She stuttered.  
  
"Miss? Are you alright?" Was the last thing she heard before she lost it and watched herself slowly fall to the floor in silence, darkness closing in around her.  
  



	2. Would You Like Dinner On An Intravenous ...

CHAPTER II  
Would You Like Dinner On An Intravenous Line Or Would You Prefer It Through A Straw?  
  
  
Jane moaned as she was brought back to consciousness by a jumble of beeping and whirring and humming. Slowly, she opened her eyes, taking in the pasty colored walls and the shock of frizzy black hair and dark, beautiful eyes above her.  
  
"Morning sunshine." The face said quietly, their eyes sparkling with compassion as Jane forced herself from the comforting blackness.  
  
"Liz." Jane choked out as she sat up and wrapped her arms around her friend's neck, sucking in all the comfort she could get. Tears pushed forward in her eyes, and Jane sucked down the urge to weep again.   
  
With a sniff, Jane pulled back and wiped her eyes with her hand, managing a smile to comply with her friend's worried face. She sat there for a moment, looking inside Liz's eyes and wallowing in the sadness.   
  
"I'm so sorry," Liz said sympathetically, frowning. Jane nodded and sat back, finally noticing that she was lying in a hospital bed with the curtain pulled up around it.   
  
"Where's Eddie?" Jane suddenly asked, franticness leaping into her eyes and words as she sat up and began to stand up from the bed, but Liz put a comforting hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently.  
  
"Calm down, Jane." Liz said, more of a pleading sense than a command. "You'll wake him up." Liz stood and helped her friend out of the bed, walking over to the curtain and gently pulling it away, revealing what made Jane stiffen.   
  
A powerful wave of melancholy washing over her.  
  
"Oh my god…" Was all she could get out beneath her fingers that were now placed across her lips, her eyes wide.  
  
Eddie looked almost lifeless beneath the blankets piled on top of him, his pallor matching that of the pasty walls.   
  
He looked so delicate without the warm red flowing beneath his skin that she was reluctant to walk toward the bed, as if he might crumble at any moment.  
  
From the bulge beneath the blankets, Jane could tell that his left arm was wrapped in a cast, clamped across his chest. His right arm lay slack beside him, IV's and other lines snaking in and out of it.  
  
An air hose was pushed up into his nose and a whole bunch of computer junk was piled around his head. He looked so strange, as if he were more a robot than her fiancé: Eddie Alden.  
  
She silently made her way forward, her feet sliding over the tiled floor with each seemingly heavy footstep. Her breath falling short as she gently took hold of his limp grasp, welcoming his touch with a burdensome heart.   
  
Jane jumped as she felt Eddie's loose fingers tighten slightly around her spidery hand, a small moan issuing from his lips as he collapsed back into the bed.   
  
She watched as his eyes barely fluttered open, tiny slits only revealing a fraction of the deep, beautiful, brown world that lay beneath.  
  
Eddie managed a small smile as his tongue flashed out lamely to moisten his dry lips, and he gently lifted Jane's hand to his face, kissing it lightly.   
  
Jane smiled, ignoring the loose tears now trailing her cheek.   
  
"Hey," Eddie whispered, his voice low and husky as his eyes slid shut again.   
  
"Hi," Jane answered, she turned to Liz in desperation, who had slunk off into a corner and had her arms wrapped about herself, surveying Jane's actions.   
  
Liz only shook her head and shrugged, her eyes flashing from Eddie's limp form, to Jane's pleading eyes, to the ground.  
  
"I'll be outside," Liz smiled politely and pushed back the tears in her eyes, walking out the door. "Get well, Eddie." She said over her shoulder.  
  
Jane half-heartedly watched as her friend slid out of the door, leaving her standing in the middle of a room with a broken man clasped to her fingers.   
  
"Oh Eddie," Jane murmured, watching his lamed and pained efforts as he tried to scooch over in the bed.   
  
"Come here," Eddie whispered, his eyes lazily appearing again as he lifted his chin, beckoning her to come in.  
  
Jane faltered a moment, thinking over the action before sliding carefully into the bed with him, freaking when he took a sharp breath because of a shock of pain.   
  
After positioning herself as comfortably as possible without further disturbing Eddie, Jane rested her head between his shoulder and chin, listening to his heavy breathing.   
  
"I've missed you," Eddie said, snuggling closer to Jane as he felt her tremble with sadness against him, his paper hospital gown shifting noisily.   
  
An edgy tranquility washed over her as his neck vibrated with his deep voice, seeming to massage her fevered skin. Jane cinched her eyes closed, but it was already too late, tears slipped down the bridge of her nose and dripped loose onto his shoulder.  
  
"I was so scared," Jane whimpered, sniffing back more tears as she lifted her hand to wrap a loose arch around his neck, avoiding his broken arm as she snuggled closer to his body, feeding off his warmth. "What happened?"  
  
"I don't really remember," Eddie sank back into the pillows, his voice still husky, his vocal chords seeming to be strings of granite. "I was just walking across the street, and this car came out of nowhere, and took me off my feet. And the next thing I remember is lying on the ground with a whole bunch of people standing around me, just staring…"   
  
Jane suddenly noticed that goosebumps had erupted across his arms and he was shivering slightly. Her eyebrows stitched as she felt him go limp in her arms, succumbing to the exhaustion that ravaged his body.   
  
Jane gently slipped her head from his shoulder and scooted up so her nose was an inch apart from his and looked directly into his closed eyes.   
  
She watched him for a second, noticing things, the curve of his nose, his slightly darkened eyes, the shape of his eyebrows, and the little bit of stubble growing across his chin, things she had never taken time to notice.  
  
"Welcome back," Jane whispered almost silently, gently pushing her head forward and delicately pecking the tip of his nose with her lips, letting a light smack of moist skin carry her away to darkness.  



	3. My Baby Is Busy Wearing A Neck Brace Rat...

CHAPTER III  
My Baby Is Busy Wearing A Neck Brace Rather Than His Angel Wings Today  
  
Everything seemed to bow into slow motion, the headlights flickered as if taunting him, the screaming brakes seemed to laugh with perverted joy, and the metal bumper shimmered cruelly in the bare light of the empty New York street, before taking him out.  
  
He couldn't move at all, as if his feet were glued to the asphalt, and all he could do was stare out in horror.  
  
As soon as the shimmering bumper hit his knees, he knew he was a dead man. He could feel his knees bend backwards, his bones brushing past each other, in the wrong directions.   
  
He could only cry out as the force sent him flying across the street, and the only thing he could do was swing his flailing arm out in front of him as he came headfirst into the sidewalk.  
  
His vision exploded into silver light that surpassed the word beauty. But he didn't have time to admire it because a half-second later there was the hollow crack of bones and an immense pain rang throughout his body.  
  
His throat echoed the pain, emitting it into an agonizing scream that almost deafened the agony of his mind. And through his world of torturing pain and silver light, he could feel himself falling, into nothing, and blackness overtook him…  
  
"JANE!" Eddie snapped straight up in the bed in a panic, his movements suddenly cauterized by a freight train of pain that boiled though every nerve in his body.  
  
"Eddie!" Jane immediately snapped from the fuzziness of the sleep, awakened by her fiancé's scream. "Eddie! Eddie, calm down! Eddie, it's okay, I'm here! Oh god! Eddie! Talk to me!"  
  
Jane was frantic, her arms like lead weights at her side as her mind and mouth screamed frantically to make him stop. She watched him fall back into the pillows, sweat and tears running down his face with his jaw clenched tight and his eyes cinched.  
  
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, tears burning up from her throat as she watched him begin to convulse with small, spastic jerks, sweat still dripping off him.   
  
"Eddie. Eddie baby, talk to me. Tell me where it hurts." Jane tried, finally lifting her deadweight arms from her sides and placing them gently on the sides of his face, holding his head still.  
  
Soon, his body followed his head's command and the only thing left was sweat soaked sheets and his heavy, hitched breathing that now resonated throughout the room.   
  
"Eddie? Can you talk to me? Tell me something." Jane pleaded, tears streaming her cheeks as she bent over and frantically kissed all the soft places on his face she could reach, as if he might disappear at any moment.  
  
His shallow breathing only stopped inconsistently when he went to swallow back another cry, forcing it like bile down his throat. He was shivering slightly, his eyes still closed and his mouth still clenched shut.  
  
"Eddie, come on baby," Jane cooed as she regained the broken pieces of her sanity and slipped her finger between his lips, seeking out a weakness at which to open his jaws.  
  
Within a few seconds, he gave her the opportunity and she pushed a pencil between his teeth, one that had been sitting on the bedside table next to her, which already had teeth marks etched into it from previous nights.   
  
He lay with tears still streaming down his face, his face twisted into an agonizing demeanor. All color had washed from his face, only his cheeks were flushed with the brilliance of blood flowing beneath his skin.   
  
Jane took her hand and gently began to wipe away the sweat from his face, wiping it carelessly onto her long tee shirt.   
  
It had been only five days since Eddie had been able to come home without the assistance of a nurse, and the nightmares were already pluming. Almost every night they would come, haunting him, attacking him when either of them least expected it.  
  
Flowers, presents, and get-well cards had come by the dozens, and were all stacked out in the living room. Most of them were from coworkers from the Diana Robert's Show.   
  
But there were some from Jane's friends, and even Ray Brown sent Eddie a card, which, Jane threatened to throw away, with the disapproval of Eddie.  
  
Jane waited until Eddie's jaws finally relaxed and the pencil rolled limply out from between his lips, before she moved again. She gently rolled up and placed her hands above his shoulders, supported over his silent frame and looking into his closed face.  
  
"Are you alright?" Jane whispered, carefully watching his face for any fraction of anything as he sighed lightly and nodded. She cocked her head to the side as she watched him still shivering slightly, goosebumps breaking out across his skin.  
  
"Are you sure?" She asked one more time, gently rolling back beside him and tucking the covers around his shaking frame, leaning in close to him and holding her head an fraction of an inch away from the top of his shoulder, letting it hover.  
  
He nodded, cringing slightly as he tried to push himself stiffly up so that he was sitting vertical, but managed something short of a slanted, laying position and allowed Jane to crawl into his lap, her ear against his chest.  
  
They lay there in silence for a few seconds, Jane listening to the heavy thumps of his heart and gently rubbing her fingers up and down his arm, her fingertips dancing over the elevated veins in his arm.   
  
"You're still shaking," Jane mentioned inconsequentially, as if her comment would give her a rash explanation for it.   
  
"It'll stop," Eddie mentioned in a hollow voice, his throat burning with bile and tears and the skeletons of dead screams.   
  
"Was it the same dream?" She asked, gently running her fingernails lightly up his arm and across his collarbone before following his bone and veins back down again.   
  
He nodded lightly, as he shifted his head down to rest his chin against the top of her head, taking in her vanilla smell. His eyes fluttered open as he felt something hot and moist slide onto his chest, and he realized it was a tear.  
  
"Jane? Why are you crying?" He asked, shifting out from beneath her while she still lay on her side. He turned his head to the side and sought out her dainty hand beneath the covers, intertwining their fingers like they use to do.  
  
"I was scared," Jane managed a smile through her tears, her chin shaking with trapped sobs as he pulled her in again against his collar bone, nuzzling her with his head.  
  
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Eddie admitted, closing his eyes and leaning down his head to kiss her softly on the top of the head.   
  
"I love you," He whispered, like a little, embarrassed child would to another embarrassed child.  
  
"I love you too."   



	4. Are You Going To Come Quietly Or Do I Ha...

CHAPTER IV  
Are You Going To Come Quietly Or Do I Have To Use Earplugs?  
  
"Look Jane," Eddie hobbled miserably to the couch in the spacious living room and dropped himself with a heavy sigh, allowing the crutches to slide to the floor. "I don't need one."  
  
Jane was behind the counter in the connecting kitchen, her chin propped up on her elbows, her eyes staring blankly into his lying face. She was twirling her engagement ring obliviously around her finger, chewing on her tongue.  
  
"It's all bullshit. I don't buy into it." Eddie threw up his good hand in surrender - his other one slung in a cast, and deadweight against his chest - and turned away from Jane, staring blankly at the floor.  
  
"You wanna to know what's bullshit?" Jane asked, pounding her elbows on the countertop to get his attention before continuing. "You. You're just too damn proud to admit that you need help. That's what's bullshit." Jane flipped her hair from her face angrily.   
  
"Me?" Eddie quipped, his hand pivoting to face his chest. "I'm not the one who's going insane over some recurring nightmare and saying I should go to some tight-assed, egotistically absorbed bitch and spill my guts out." Eddie was about to rise, but thought against it.  
  
"You know," Jane's hand tightened into a rigid grip in front of her as if she was holding a ball, but there was no ball. "The problem is that you're so wrapped up in yourself that you're cutting off everything else in the world."  
  
"Case in point." Eddie gestured loosely with his fingers before rubbing his hand up and down his face in annoyance. He tried to make it appear as if he was just resting due to exhaustion, but it was really to hide from Jane's reactions.   
  
Jane's jaw hung open as she tried to think something intelligent up, but she could find none, instead she surrendered. "Fine! If you want to wake up every morning screaming and welcoming yourself into a world of pain, go right he hell for it. Otherwise; I'm going for a walk."  
  
"Good!" Eddie retorted, watching her as she stomped across the room and grabbed her coat from the coat rack near the door before flipping around to face him. "Fine!" She yelled back, slamming the door behind her.  
  
Eddie sat there a moment, the sound of the rain slapping against the apartment windows filling the emptiness now engulfing the room. He sighed heavily before sinking to the side of the couch, resting his head on the armrest and closing his eyes.   
  
*MOO*  
  
"I just don't understand. Why is he so insensate?" Jane asked pitifully, shifting her salad indifferently around on her plate with her fork. She sat moping over her dinner that she had suddenly scheduled with Liz.  
  
"It's obvious," Liz said, popping an olive into her mouth impolitely while she was talking. "He's a man. Men have to act tough." She shrugged her shoulders and looked back down to her plate, fishing out another olive from her salad.  
  
"I know, it's just…" Jane tried, but gave up, shaking her head at the hopelessness of it.   
  
"Look babe," Liz's hands snapped in execution. "He'll get over it. You'll break him down. Remember…" She began, and Jane automatically finished.  
  
"Time wounds all heals." Jane smiled half-heartedly as Liz giggled, going back to her food.   
  
"God. You never have enough olives when you need them." Liz tried keenly to change the subject, but Jane was use to it and she did not surrender.  
  
Jane simply pushed her plate out of the way and dropped her head onto the table, sighing loudly.   
  
The waiter came and gave them the check before leaving in a huff to clean up a mess someone had left on another table.  
  
"Don't beat yourself up over it." Liz tried, gently placing her hand on her friend's tightly coiled shoulder, squeezing gently. "It's just repercussions, you know, like…like…" Liz tried to think fast.  
  
Her eyes grew wide as an idea came to her and she pointed her finger at Jane, "like, when Ray broke up with you and you kept having those bouts of depression." Liz nodded as though she's just won Double Jeopardy, wiping her hands on her napkin.  
  
"What?" Jane rose from the confinements of her arms in confusion. "That's nothing like this," Jane pouted, taking an apathetic sip from her water.   
  
"Whatever," she waved her hand as if the idea would disappear behind her shoulder and got up and grabbed her damp coat, taking Jane by the wrist and helping her to her feet. "Come on."  
  
"Where are we going?" Jane asked lazily, watching as Liz threw down some money on the table and grabbed her car keys before leading Jane away.  
  
"I'm going to buy you a drink."  
  
*MOO*  
  
Eddie was sprawled lazily across the back of the couch, his head back and his good arm and leg stretched as far as they could. His eyes were shut and only the sound of the rain and his breathing filled his ears.  
  
With a dispassionate sigh, Eddie sat up from his lolled position and bent down to reach for his crutch, cringing as a pain burst through his side, and he sat back up, easing the pain.   
  
He sighed as he lifted the bottom of his shirt, revealing a long, pink scar that ran diagonally across his belly, a yellow and purple bruise encasing it. He pushed gingerly at the soft tissue, taking a sharp breath at the spurt of pain.  
  
He ran a hand through his hair, his breath speeding up as memories came back to him.  
  
The headlights…  
  
The brakes…  
  
The sounds…  
  
The smells…  
  
The pain…  
  
The people…  
  
Crowding…  
  
Standing…  
  
Staring…  
  
"No!" He pushed away their eyes from his mind, coming to grips with the fact he was sitting safely in his apartment living room, four stories above the street.  
  
Slowly, he relaxed his breath and wiped the collected sweat from his forehead, blinking the horrid images from his head. Shaking his head at himself, he bent to retrieve his crutch, ignoring the pain.  
  
He slowly pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, positioning his crutch comfortably beneath his arm as he hobbled across the room to the counter and positioned himself halfway onto one of the barstools.  
  
He reached out and grabbed the phonebook, then pulled the phone into his reach and began flipping through the phonebook, scanning his finger down as her got to the right page and found what he was looking for.  
  
Without a second thought, Eddie dialed in the number and waited until someone picked up, then he froze, lost in thought. The continual shriek of the disconnected line brought him back as he shook back to reality.  
  
A cold sweat broke out across his body as he shook the absurdity of his thought from his mind and pressed redial.  
  
"Hello? Yes, I'd like to make an appointment with a Dr. Summers."  



	5. Never Go To A Doctor Whose Office Plants...

CHAPTER V  
Never Go To A Doctor Whose Office Plants Have Died  
  
"Mr. Alden?" A squatty receptionist peeked over desk, facing Eddie who sat as casually as he could in the waiting room chair with half of his body still broken.  
  
He looked up reluctantly from an article he was pretending to read from one of the outdated magazines and regretting his response to the words coming.  
  
"Dr. Summers will see you now." The receptionist smiled a huge, toothy grin as Eddie pushed himself casually up from the consuming chair and snatched up his crutch.   
  
He tried to pace himself as he stumbled into the doors of hell, his heart immediately lodging itself into his throat.   
  
Eddie took a deep breath and held it, hoping he could somehow disappear, but it didn't happen. Instead, he looked about the room, noticing the dark red wallpaper and the black leather couch along the back wall.  
  
A big, open faced window looked out over varying sizes of buildings of New York and seemed to swallow up the sunlight. A few black and white pictures hung about the walls, coupled with a diploma and a synthetic plant sitting bleakly in the corner.  
  
Eddie jumped as someone in the room cleared their throat, and he turned to face a woman staring quietly at him from her desk in a puffy chair adjacent to the couch.   
  
Her red hair was slicked back against her head, a ponytail flowing out behind and brushing her shoulders with various curling tendrils. Her face came to smooth points and she looked at him from above a pair of black, square-rimmed glasses.  
  
A notebook and pen sat readily in her lap and Eddie couldn't help but let his eyes linger down the sleek shape of her crossed legs.   
  
He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out, instead the woman rose to her feet and pushed her glasses back up in front of her eyes. "Doctor Rachel Summers." She smiled, holding out her hand.  
  
Eddie stood frozen, his mouth still hanging open and his body rigid. Then he realized what was going on. "Uh, Eddie Alden…" He said blankly, nodding his head toward her hand then motioning toward his crutch, hinting his dilemma.  
  
"Oh yes, I see." She pulled her hand back - unscathed and dignity still intact - and instead motioned to the sofa lying against the wall. "Please, have a seat." She waited until Eddie was as comfortable as he could get before she sat down herself.  
  
Eddie fidgeted as nonchalantly as he could, his eyes scanning the walls at things he'd already seen upon entering. He scratched his head and looked back to Dr. Summers, smiling back in kind when she smiled.  
  
Then she sighed. "Okay, well, let's start off by my asking you why you're here." Dr. Summers sat back in her chair, and Eddie knew things were starting to get warmed up. He casually wiped the sweat from his palms onto his pants and sat back as much as he could.  
  
"I don't really know," He lied, gloating his lie by pasting on an embarrassed smile.   
  
"Then you're just here to regard my office?" The light-hearted joke hung heavy in the room as both of them smiled, but neither chose to follow it.   
  
Eddie turned away from her and chewed on his lip, jumping slightly at the groan of moving leather, and he spun to face Dr. Summers again.  
  
She was sitting forward slightly with her hands clasp on her lap and her eyes burrowing into his head. "I want you to feel as comfortable as you can Eddie. Try to relax."   
  
He hesitated, before letting out his breath slowly and clearing his throat and just staring at her. "Is that relaxed?" She smirked.  
  
"As much as I can push it." He smiled politely and tore away from her gaze. Her face suddenly fell into empathy and she eased back, her leather chair groaning again at her movements.  
  
"Oh really?" A faint line formed between her eyes as her eyebrows stitched.   
  
"Hence, the crutch." Eddie commented with a polite smile as her face switched into understanding. She turned to face her notebook and scribbled something on it before looking back up to him with an odd sense of emptiness in her eyes.  
  
"May I ask what caused your injuries?" Her green eyes seemed to shimmer eerily in the lights and Eddie felt a chill run down his spine.  
  
"Uh," Eddie's voice fell flat.  
  
"Everything you say in this room is completely confidential, nothing ever leaves this room." She suddenly spoke as if he was about to tell her an enormous secret, but he just couldn't find his voice.   
  
He smiled again and gently stroked his finger nervously over the scar on his belly over his shirt, trying to look as nonchalant as he possibly could.  
  
"I had an acc…incident…" Eddie could feel the control of his mind and words slipping out from beneath him, and he felt himself fall into her power defenselessly.   
  
"Tell me about the incident." Dr. Summers said smoothly. Her brilliant green eyes seemed to soften when he looked into them and he couldn't help but to tell her.   
  
"…I…it…"He closed his eyes and tried to picture it in his mind then translate it into words.  
  
"What specifics do you remember?" Dr. Summers had a way to control her words so that they sounded more like a coax than an interrogation.   
  
"…I was just walking across the street, and it was dark…" Eddie pushed back the panic now rising in his body as reenactments flashed across his mind.  
  
"And this car, from out of nowhere, came from the dark…and…I couldn't move, so I just stood there…and watched it come toward me…"  
  
Sweat broke out across his brow and his body tightened like a coiled spring as he pulled in his arms and legs.  
  
"It's alright Eddie, don't try to hold the memories back, let them come, they can't hurt you." Dr. Summers pushed lightly. "What else to you remember?"   
  
"I remember standing there, just watching as the car came at me. And then I remember it taking my legs out from under me, and then I was flying through the air and then landing on the sidewalk."  
  
Eddie was now wringing his hands nervously and rocking back and forth on the couch.  
  
"Then there were these people, and they were just standing over me, just staring. And there was something about their faces…" Eddie suddenly fell silent, his eyes still closed.  
  
"What about their faces? Tell me about their faces Eddie." Dr. Summers laid a hand onto his knee, and he opened his eyes only to turn away from her, embarrassed.  
  
"I can't help if you won't tell me. Please, I'm here, there's nothing to be afraid of." Dr. Summers spoke with the kindness of a mother.  
  
"The faces. They were them."  
  
"Who are them?"   
  
"All the women. The one's I have dumped. They were standing over me, just staring with cold eyes." An icy sweat had broken out across the rest of Eddie's skin and he could feel goosebumps forming along his arms and legs.  
  
He swore that he could feel his core temperature plummet to a flat line ninety point nothing, and all he could do was keep talking and rocking and shivering.  
  
"Was there anything else significant about the accident?" Dr. Summers took into account that he was convulsing and gently eased him back onto the couch, draping a blanket over him as he continued.  
  
"The driver…of the car that hit me…"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"It was 'becca."  
  
"Who's 'becca?"  
  
"Rebecca was my girlfriend, before I met Jane. I thought she was the one I was going to be with forever."  
  
"Tell me about 'becca." Dr. Summers used the name that he was customary to and immediately noticed that the change of topic seemed to have a calming effect on Eddie.  
  
"She was beautiful. She had long, red hair and vivid eyes that just stared at you and made you go weak. She worked as a nurse, and we got our first apartment together. But then, all of a sudden, she drifted."  
  
"What do you mean 'drifted'?" Dr. Summers jotted a few more noted down onto her notebook before looking back up to Eddie, who had casually flung his good arm over his eyes.  
  
"I just woke up one morning, and instead of her lying next to me…there was a note…"  
  
"What did the note say?"  
  
"Something along the lines of 'I'm getting bored, I think we should find different people.'" He sniffed and shifted himself so he was more comfortable.  
  
"And so, we never met again, and I took up a job at the Diana Robert's Show and kept searching for the perfect women, the one to fill the gap that 'becca left."   



	6. It Is Not The Fall That Kills You. It Is...

CHAPTER VI  
It Is Not The Fall That Kills You. It Is - In Fact - The Impact.   
  
"Eddie?" Jane called into the apartment with no answer, her voice reverberating off the empty walls. She settled the grocery bag onto the counter and quickly put away the perishables before going off to find her fiancé.  
  
"Eddie baby, are you alive?" She joked, looking into their bedroom and finding no half-broken man.   
  
Then, suddenly, she felt something wet and smooth drift across her shins and she looked down to find a warm fog sweeping past her legs.  
  
She was puzzled until she followed the fog's escape through the bottom door of the bathroom, and a shadow of a sleek smile tripped across her face.  
  
Ever so delicately, she turned the knob and peeked into the bathroom, momentarily averted as a rush of white, warm, wet steam plumed into the cold hallway.   
  
As soon as the wall of steam had dissipated, she slid between the barely opened door and it's frame, trying to keep as much steam in as she could.   
  
As silently as possible, she shut the door behind her and tiptoed across the floor, silently stripping as she went.   
  
Leaving behind a trail of clothing, she made her way to the bathtub, finally close enough to make out Eddie's dark silhouette.   
  
From what she could tell, he was bent wildly within the tub, his bad leg and arm hanging perilously from the lip so as not to get the casts wet, and his head was laid back.  
  
"Hey baby," She whispered as she gently caressed her fingers along his damp shoulder, smiling at his surprise. "Sorry," She said as he twisted his head back to her, cringing at the cordial movement that his body refused to do.  
  
Without a word, he slid forward in the tub as much as he possibly could and let her slide in behind him, the water rising another two inches and threatening to slosh over the sides.  
  
After both were comfortably situated, Jane allowed Eddie to rest his head back on her shoulder as she gently began to stroke his wet hair with her fingers, unintentionally forming peaked spikes with her stroking.  
  
"I've missed you," Eddie whispered in a hoarse voice, and Jane guessed that she had woken him from sleeping.   
  
"I haven't been anywhere," Jane mentioned, craning her head to gently kiss him on the side of his neck. She gently wrapped her left arm about his shoulders, holding onto him for comfort.  
  
"I know, I just missed you." Was his empty reply.  
  
Eddie suddenly coughed and Jane held onto him as if he might vanish at any given moment, her hands sliding over his wet and fevered flesh.  
  
"Speaking of which," Jane absently redirected as his coughing faded and she resumed stroking his hair. "Where were you yesterday?"  
  
"What do you mean?" He opened his eyes, but rejected the idea of turning his head to face her.  
  
"After the fight. I came home, and you were gone."  
  
"I…uh…just needed some air, that's all." He closed his eyes and relaxed into her body again, acting as if it was no big deal.  
  
"You shouldn't be walking on your leg, especially with the condition you're in." Jane said, and she was confused at the sudden tension now rolling from his shoulders, down to his thighs and the explosion of goosebumps.  
  
"Are you okay?" She asked, looking into his face as it flinched.  
  
"Yeah, I'm just cold." He lied.  
  
She shifted her left arm down, so that her hand trailed to his washboard stomach, her fingers dancing over the operation scar that now plagued his beautiful flesh, and a new roll of tension surged down his body.  
  
His good hand suddenly shot up to grab onto her wrist, protectively, and she knew what was going on.  
  
"No. No, It's okay; I'm not going to hurt you baby. I promise."   
  
She remembered that night when she had cuddled closer to Eddie beneath the sheets to keep warm and had accidentally run her fingers over his scar, and in his sleep had accused her of being his "attacker".  
  
Reluctantly, he eased his grip off her wrist and she calmly began massaging it with her fingertip, the scar feeling like someone had taken a piece of sand paper and scrubbed away his skin, leaving his muscle revealed.  
  
Almost unintelligently, Jane started humming lightly, closing her eyes and relaxing into - what she noted as to be - incredibly warm water. She wondered how Eddie could be cold at all, but, whatever.  
  
The thoughts slipped from her mind, along with her slipping hand as it fell gently to rest against Eddie's thigh, and she could feel Eddie cuddle closer to her as they relaxed into each other.  
  
The absorbing sheen of the tiled walls gently digested the fading purr of an unknown song, as both drifted off into oblivion.   



	7. Those Who Prefer To Be Late Will Undoubt...

CHAPTER VII  
Those Who Prefer To Be Late Will Undoubtedly Get No Fruit Cup  
  
Jane lolled back in her padded chair, her shoulder and chin securing the telephone snuggly against her ear and a yogurt covered spoon sticking out of her mouth.   
  
"…I mean, it's not like I can't trust him." Jane continued, oblivious to the bustle of productiveness going on outside her corner office. The spoon muffled her words, but being her best friend on the other line, there was no complication.  
  
"I'm not saying that." Liz retorted, her addiction of cigarettes getting the best of her as she slipped out a Slim and put it between her lips, cupping her hands around a lighter. "All I'm saying is that you should watch him."   
  
"Well…" Jane's eyes glanced out the window suspiciously before rising to shut the door. "He has been going out for walks more often than I and the doctor thinks he should…"  
  
Jane could hear Liz's exasperated inhale on the other line and she quickly tried to recover.  
  
"But, come on, I mean, why would he do that to me?" Jane felt herself losing ground.  
  
"Jane. Hello?" Liz spoke as if Jane were an incompetent child. "You think he would just drop all his womanizing cold turkey just because you walked into his life? No offense. But to him, women are like cigarettes, you have to leave 'em step by step."  
  
Jane rolled her eyes, and absently watched her busy coworkers rush by her window, occasionally turning in her direction for a nod of hello. Her mind fizzed over important subjects elsewhere.  
  
"Jane? Jane? Are you there?" Liz's cracking voice suddenly brought Jane back into the mad bustle of the present.   
  
"Huh? What?" Jane retook her mind.  
  
"I said: 'Where is Eddie now?'" She emphasized. Blowing smoke into the receiver as she shimmied onto the desk near the open window to allow the smoke to billow out into the already well polluted atmosphere of New York City.  
  
"He's at home, just sleeping."  
  
"Last time you checked?"  
  
"Yeah."   
  
"Well…" She dragged out her word long enough to touch a nerve in Jane.  
  
"'Well' what?" Jane's eyes bulged as she tried to mimic Liz's temperance.  
  
"Oh, I don't know, maybe you should, you know…" Liz did terrible at acting nonchalant when something was on her mind and floating on her lips.  
  
"Spill it." Jane said, looking at the clock on the wall, noting that it was about three minutes away from her sixty minute lunch break, plenty of time for Liz's coming plan.  
  
"Okay." Liz's voice jumped as though she was about to tell the biggest gossip passed this side of the office cubicles. "Why don't you make an unscheduled stop home and see if he's 'just sleeping'." She breathed out in mock tone.  
  
Jane huffed at the thought. "Oh Jesus," she sighed, "I appreciate the love knowledge you so idly contribute to my life, but don't you think you're crossing the line into uncharted territory?"   
  
Liz made a naively loud sigh into the telephone and leaned over, her cigarette still burning strong between her fingers. "Say what you want," She retorted, and Jane knew she was holding up her hand defensively. "But you never know."  
  
With that, she hung up the phone and left Jane pining over ridiculous thoughts of Eddie's shadowing past and how he just might not be able to shake it…  
  
*MOO*  
  
Jane quietly turned her keys to her apartment, the door clicking softly open as she stepped inside. She was met with a cold draft and noted that the window was open, a light wind blowing in.  
  
She tiptoed across the floor and slid her purse onto the counter, immediately turning her attention to the bedroom.  
  
With the little voice nagging at the back of her mind, Jane peeked into their room, seeing the still messy sheets strewn about the bed and floor, and no sign of Eddie or a pilfering woman.  
  
Satisfied with the fact that there was no such scene as Liz had effectively carved into her mind, Jane was still disheartened and uncomfortable to find no Eddie hobbling about the apartment.  
  
After a quick scan of both bedrooms and the bathroom, her thread of discomfort turned to fear as she slipped back out into the living room, and her fear immediately dissolved into coddling pity.  
  
Eddie lay sprawled on the couch, a blanket thrown dismally across him and a light snore emitting from his open mouth.   
  
Jane smiled to herself as she came forward, approaching him cautiously before bending down at the side of the couch and looking across at the top of his head, which rested comfortably on the armrest of the sofa.  
  
Cordially, she raised her hand and gently stroked his hair, smiling as he looked up at her through a warm, fuzzy haze of sleep deprivation.   
  
"Hey baby," Jane cooed, her thumb now trailing the curve of his chin.  
  
"Hey." He groaned, his face tightening as he gingerly lifted his still broken body from a horizontal position. "What time is it?" He rubbed his eyes.  
  
"Almost twelve," She smiled and got up from her squatting pose, walking toward the kitchen refrigerator and returning with two white pills and a glass of water, which she set on the table in front of Eddie.  
  
Eddie made a halfhearted, depressed face and leaned his head onto Jane's shoulder as she sat down next to him, and he tried his best to coax her out of the pills.   
  
"Come on," She spoke as though to a little, antagonistic child. "They'll make you feel better." She fingered them and probed them into his mouth, cordially following with the glass of water as he choked them down.   
  
After recovering from his gagging reflex, Eddie once again curled into Jane's lap and she openly welcomed him into her arms, gently rocking as much of his tall frame as she could with her petite body.  
  
"I love you." Jane said, completely consumed in the serenity of their commingling breathing.  
  
And suddenly, Eddie's body went rigid. Jane stopped rocking and moved Eddie so that he faced her.   
  
His face was screwed tight against his skull, his eyes cinched shut.   
  
"Are you alright?" Worry crept into Jane's words.  
  
"Yeah, well, no. No, not really." Eddie choked out, his lips and tongue having trouble expressing his feelings.  
  
"What is it?" She asked, deducting pain from her mind because of the fact he was talking normally.  
  
"There's something I've been meaning to tell you…" His words trailed off as he slid from Jane's lap and hopped on one foot away from Jane, still refusing to look at her, though his eyes were open.  
  
"Eddie," A rock formed in her throat and she tried to copy all the movies she had seen as best she could, "you can tell me anything." Her heart skipped a beat.  
  
Eddie took a long, slow breath, almost too long and slow before turning shimmering, forlorn, puppy dog brown eyes that pierced Jane's heart.  
  
"The truth is…" He put a long pause between his sentence sections.  
  
"Yes?"   
  
He slowly blew out his breath before continuing.  
  
"I've been seeing someone."  



	8. 

CHAPTER VIII  
I Am Only Going To Ask You This Once. Are You A Good Witch Or Are You A Bad Witch?   
  
Jane could feel the tears rush to her eyes and her throat and heart burn with rage.   
  
"What?" She choked out, looking up at Eddie in complete shock, her hands shaking in her lap.  
  
Suddenly, he realized what it must have sounded like and his good hand shot out quickly, protecting him.   
  
"Oh, no. No, no, no." He tried to take back the idea. "No, not like that." He hobbled over to the couch but as soon as he hit the cushion, Jane was up, her mind and mouth still boiling over his words, completely inattentive to his redemption.  
  
"Why? I mean, how could you?" She suddenly pointed an accusing finger at him, her eyes growing wide. "After all this time, and everything I've done for you! How could you?! You son of a bitch!"  
  
"Woah!" Eddie was up on his feet faster than he should of and he momentarily faltered. "Hold on a minute Jane-" He tried, inching his way toward her as she rambled on and on.  
  
"I loved you! And I thought you loved me too! But now I see that you're just a lying, cheating son of a bitch!" Tear's fell freely from Jane's face as she stood there shaking in hysterics and sadness.  
  
With a quick motion, Eddie launched forward and grabbed onto Jane's shoulders with a firm grip, refusing to let her wriggle away.  
  
"Let go! Let go of me! God dammit!" Jane tried to beat against his chest in a vain effort to make him release her, and she only found herself collapsing into his arms.   
  
"Now listen to me Jane." His voice was somewhat commanding. "It's not what you're thinking. I'm seeing someone, yes, but I'm seeing a psychiatrist." He explained, clamping her to his chest.  
  
"That's why I've been gone on "walks" every Tuesday and Friday, I was ashamed. I was ashamed that I had to go to a psychiatrist, that's all…" His voice slowly faded and the sound of Jane's hitched breathing took it's place.  
  
"I was…scared…" He looked away from her and began to bounce her up and down in her arms, forcing the words out. "I didn't want you to think that I was weak."   
  
After a moment of recollecting herself, Jane sniffed and twisted her head up from his now tear-soaked shirt, looking up at his face with tear filled eyes, "you promise?"  
  
Eddie smiled meekly and rested the side of his head on top of hers, gently rocking her back and forth as she had done. "Yeah baby. Yeah. I promise."   
  
"Then why?" Jane fell back into his chest and wrapped her arms around him, slipping her fingers up his shirt and running her fingernails gently up and down his back.  
  
"Why, what?" Eddie asked, a chill plowing up his spine.  
  
"Why didn't you tell me that you were going to a psychiatrist?" Jane finally could smell his fading cologne from his tear stained shirt.   
  
"Because," He suddenly fell limp over top of her and she readily supported him. "Because I hate feeling wounded." He admitted, enjoying the placid effect her fingernails were bringing to him.  
  
"For weeks after 'becca left me, I just moped around the house trying to think of ways to kill myself and then suddenly, my self-pity turned to aggression and I started taking out the wall. But I had to stop because I had to bring the pieces downstairs at night in garbage bags, it looked like body pieces." He suddenly confessed his actions.  
  
"So that's why you went around womanizing and acting like a cold-blooded asshole?" Jane asked in a serious tone.  
  
"To put it lightly, I suppose so."  
  
Jane giggled and finally pulled away from Eddie, wiping the streaking tears away from her face with the palm of her hand and looking at her wristwatch through tear-blurred eyes.  
  
"Holy," Jane suddenly jumped into action, noticing that she had ten minutes to get back to work. "I'm sorry baby, I have to go." Jane stood up on her tiptoes and pecked him lightly on the tip of the nose, smiling as she hurried to the door and grabbed her coat on the way out.  
  
"Bye!" She yelled over her shoulder, "I'll call you before I leave work." And with that, she accidentally slammed the door behind her and went shooting to the elevator.  
  
Eddie smiled and shook his head, casually making his way to the couch where he slowly, but surely lowered himself until he was comfortably seated on the couch, and silently watched the distinct flags flap wildly outside the apartment windows, a hole in himself suddenly filled.   



	9. 

Chapter IX  
It Is Costing Me A Fortune To Keep The Poor Sucker On Life-support System  
  
Eddie shifted his weight as casually as he could back into the bed as a tall, thin woman doctor entered with a clipboard clasped against one side and a pearly, white smile slapped across her face.  
  
Long, shapely, tanned legs supported a thin torso that curved in all the right places. She reminded Eddie of one of those women you see posing on the trunk of an expensive, slicked up car in magazines.  
  
Eddie could feel his temperature rising as he pictured himself sitting solely on the examination table in a paper gown barely sufficient to cover his tall frame, and his jaw cradled in his lap.  
  
"Hello." The doctor said as she smiled, her gold, curling, tendrils of hair sifted back and forth on her shoulders as she stuck out her hand, her fingernails painted silver. "I'm Dr. Youngblood."  
  
"Uh…Eddie Alden…" it took him a minute to find his voice, and even longer to lean forward and shake her hand, cringing slightly.  
  
Dr. Youngblood's face suddenly flashed with sorrow and she looked at his hand again, as if confirming her thought. "Damn." She cursed more to herself than to Eddie.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're married. Too bad, you know? You're pretty cute." She smiled and dismissed her thought with a giggle and a shrug as she set down the clipboard on the counter.  
  
Eddie suddenly felt as if he was in the middle of a boiling cauldron and he could feel his face go red with embarrassment.   
  
"So, it says here you have a broken radius, a sprained ankle, and you seem to have lost your appendix." She tried to make light of the subject and all Eddie could do was smile in kind.  
  
"Well," She came towards him and he unconsciously backed away. "Let's see if we can find it."   
  
She paused momentarily at the counter to put on a pair of latex gloves then turned to face him. "Lie back," She said, and he did as he was told, somewhat reluctantly, but did it just the same.  
  
She gently folded up the gown, revealing the still healing, four-inch incision that was still rimmed with green and yellow and now purple bruising. He felt his cheeks flush as his blue Superman boxers were exposed.   
  
"Nice." Dr. Youngblood remarked, smiling as he rolled his eyes in spite of himself.   
  
Her tone suddenly turned professional and she allowed Eddie to become as comfortable as he possibly could, before she dove in.  
  
"I'm just going to check any tissue around the injury for inflammation or tenderness."  
  
She took her two first fingers on her right hand and gently pushed them down around the colored portion of the incision, moving them around cautiously, millimeter by millimeter. "Just tell me if it hurts."  
  
Her fingers attained light, soothing pressure until they finally hit their mark. "It hurts." Eddie pushed out through grit teeth, sucking back the urge to cry out.  
  
"Right here?" She pushed again, ever so gently and he nodded quickly, his teeth still set in his jaw. "Alright," She seemed to log it in her mind before her fingers continued their journey around the incision, coming up with only one more tender spot before she was done.  
  
She turned to her clipboard on the counter and quickly scrawled her findings on the sheet before turning back to him, pulling off her gloves and throwing them into a waist basket near the bed.  
  
"Okay," she seemed to sigh as she said it. "Let's see how your arm's doing." She began opening drawers in the counter, until finally pulling out what looked to be a garage saw.   
  
It had a short, blunt handle and a shimmering, silver, circular, jagged toothed blade waiting patiently beneath a protective plastic cover.  
  
Eddie felt his blood run cold as she plugged the extension cord running out the back of the thing into the wall and came towards him.   
  
She was imperceptible to his reaction as she moved a bed tray with a light attached atop it over to Eddie's side and laid down the blade.  
  
She grabbed a clean, white towel from one of the drawers in the counter and laid it across the tray, positioning the blade so that it looked like a clean operation.  
  
"Alright," she sighed again, leaning forward and gently relieving his shoulder of the sling that supported his cast arm. He cringed slightly as she guided his now free arm to lay dead on the tray.  
  
Then Dr. Youngblood caught sight of the fact that Eddie was eyeing the saw suspiciously. "Don't worry," she tried to relieve his worry. "I've done this a lot of times, and I haven't cut anyone."  
  
"At least," she added with a grin. "Not yet…"  
  
"Yet?" Eddie's eyes grew wide and he swallowed the boulder in his throat.  
  
"Relax!" She said enthusiastically, throwing back her head and laughing, her golden hair flowing like a waterfall. "This will only take a sec."  
  
"Or a section." He said dishearteningly. And only looked at her when she laughed again.  
  
"Very funny," She smirked, then turned professional.  
  
She moved herself so that she was between Eddie and the saw, blocking it from his view, while she removed the plastic.   
  
As soon as she flipped on the saw and a shrill, whirring noise filled the room, Eddie went as stiff as a board, and he cinched his eyes shut.  
  
A shiver rolled up his spine and crawled over his scalp as he felt the spinning blade come in contact with the cast, and the smell of burning plastic filled his nose.   
  
Once, he could have sworn that he had felt the blade nick his skin, and he threatened to pull out from her grasp, but then logic - luckily - came into play.  
  
After what seemed like an eternity, the saw was turned off and Eddie waited for the bad news, his eyes still closed.  
  
"There," Dr. Youngblood turned to Eddie and smiled, waiting until he opened his eyes slightly. "That wasn't so bad. Was it?" She asked, moving from her blockade and allowing him to admire her work.  
  
The red cast now lay in two pieces, with little bits of plaster crumbling at the edge, and his wet, white, shriveled wrist lying lifeless in the middle. His arm looked like it did when you take a Band-Aid off of your finger after about two days.  
  
"Let's see how your reflexes are doing," She lifted his limp hand in hers as she brushed away the remnants of the cast into the waist basket and cleared an area before setting it back down.  
  
She then pulled over her wheeled chair and sat down, lowering the tray to adjust to her new height as she began to do push lightly along the far right side of his arm, slowly trailing up.  
  
"Again, tell me if it hurts." She mentioned as she continued, again hitting her mark as she hit the fractured part. "Ow." He said calmly, pain momentarily flashing through his face before dissipating.   
  
"Anywhere else?" Her fingers trailed the rest of his arms and he shook his head. Then, she moved down to his ankle and tried to establish points of pain by moving it in one direction, then another.  
  
After a thorough examination of broken, visible things, Dr. Youngblood put away all her things and unfolded a brown, ugly wheelchair from its confinement between the counter and the wall.  
  
"Come on," She coaxed with her index finger, pointing him down into the chair and helping him in - despite his objection. "Now comes x-rays."   
  
"Joy." He said with as little enthusiasm as possible.  
  
"I'm glad to see you so happy." She quipped as they left the room, and he clasped his paper gown defensively around him, his limp hand recumbent in his lap.   
  
After the whole lead vest and the lying on the table while a big machine drew a red line over you; Dr. Youngblood wheeled Eddie gallantly back to the room and handed him a small, Pixie cup.  
  
"Have fun." She smirked as he grumbled and took it from her, hopping on his good foot into the bathroom around the corner and closing the door behind himself.  
  
After reemerging, he found Dr. Youngblood looking curiously at blue x-rays clipped up on the light board, and he set the cup down beside her, quietly taking a seat on the side of the table.  
  
She seemed to jump at the crackle of the paper covering the bed and whirled around to smile at him.  
  
"So, what's the deal?" He said dryly.  
  
"Well," She had one of her arms folded beneath her chest and the other clasped onto the bottom of her chin like a professional doctor on television would do.  
  
"You're healing well and all you have to do is keep both your wrist and your ankle wrapped until you come back in two weeks for another checkup." She smiled casually as he slid from the bed and hobbled toward his clothes, which were folded neatly on a chair near the bathroom.  
  
"Oh," She said in a matter that made him pause and turn back to her in question.   
  
"I'll leave you a lollypop." She said with a wink.   



	10. The First Glass Was Free, I Charged The ...

Chapter X  
The First Glass Was Free, The Second Was Five Dollars, It Contained The Antidote.  
  
Eddie awoke slowly and waited a while before finally opening his eyes to the sleep depraved hours of Saturday morning. He groaned as he stretched out his legs, hearing reassuring pops in his spine that he was still alive.  
  
He tried to lick the cottony taste from his mouth as he rolled over onto his side, coming face to face with Jane, who was still sleeping.   
  
He smiled as he snuggled closer to her, putting his face close enough to hers that he could only see her closed eyelids and nothing else. Delicately, he raised his good hand beneath the covers and stroked her arm, arousing her from sleep.  
  
She shuffled a bit before winking her eyes open, flinching back at the light of the room. "Morning," She crooned, stretching her spine as she tipped her head up and kissed his nose.  
  
"Morning," He said, still stroking her arm as she scooted closer to him, and he allowed her to spoon into him. She was wearing one of his tee shirts, and the smooth fabric felt good against his warmed skin.  
  
Eddie lay there and stared at her as she gently fell back into relaxation, closing her eyes and sinking back into the down pillow, half her face hidden from view.  
  
Eddie still stared.  
  
"What?" She asked groggily, inching her visible eye open and looking at him.  
  
"God you're beautiful." He said in awe, as if he had just seen her for the first time.  
  
"Yeah right," She laughed, bringing her hands around to wrap around his waist beneath the covers. "You're such a liar." She accused playfully, tucking her head beneath his chin.  
  
"You're right, I'll try to stop." He smiled keenly.  
  
"Hey!" She pointed out and in a swift motion brought her pillow from behind her head and smashed it into his face.  
  
With an equally swift motion, he rolled so that he was supported on his good arm above her, the sheets flying wildly.   
  
As soon as she could move so that she faced him, he dropped onto her with the stealth of a panther and she couldn't help but scream as he came down. Immediately, he began kissing her neck and up her face, wildly pecking at her playfully.  
  
She craned her neck and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, running her fingertips over his smooth skin. Tauntingly, she lifted her head and caught his lips in hers with a vacuuming sound and didn't let go until her lungs burned for air.  
  
She sucked the air from him and didn't let him go until he was fatigued with the minimal amount of oxygen and he collapsed onto her, snuggling into her shoulder as he maneuvered his bad hand safely out of the way and tried to catch his gasping breath.  
  
"By the way," She said incognito. "How was the doctor?"  
  
"She was great. Though you might have a little competition on your hands." He said as seriously as he could through a toothy grin.   
  
"You're so disgusting!" Jane grinned and kicked him in the bad ankle, making him howl in pain. Immediately, she silenced his scream by locking her lips around his and again vacuuming the air from him.  
  
"Oops," She said as innocently as she could, seeing the pain flicker from his eyes. "Next time don't lie, silly boy." As he rolled onto his back, she rolled up on top of him, changing positions fluidly.  
  
She pointed a finger into his chest accusingly without saying anything, then dropped and snuggled into his chest, her short hair cascading over his face. "How was it really?"  
  
"It was fine…" He finally pushed out, his eyes closed and his face twisted into a grimace.  
  
"What time did you get home?" She asked.  
  
"Around ten, you were already asleep." He said, finally beginning to relax.  
  
"Probably," She said, nodding her head. "Work has been hell lately."  
  
"I'm sorry," He said quietly.  
  
"You can't do anything about it." She took back his blame and shoved it into the air, forgetting it.  
  
He tilted his head and kissed the mess of hair across his lips, wrapping his warm arms around her petite body. "I love you." He whispered.  
  
Then he added. "Except when you kick me."  
  
Jane chuckled and took a moment, "I'm sorry baby, but you brought it on yourself." She snickered as she began to slink back down into the covers, a smile on her face.  
  
"Where are you going?" He asked, watching as she disappeared beneath the darkness of the covers. "To see." She said slyly, instead ending up at the foot of the bed on her knees.  
  
"Oh no," He sighed to himself and draped his good arm over his face, speaking through the darkness.   
  
Jane had made it a habit to disappear into the bathroom every morning for the past week to check, but now her hopes were dimming, his were dead.  
  
Eddie waited as he heard the rattling of a box and other various noises that he had become accustomed to at her morning ritual.  
  
When Jane reemerged, her face was sullen and there was a sad, pathetic look wallowing in her eyes, and Eddie suddenly felt a pain in his gut.  
  
"You know what this does to you." He stated forgivingly, making his way from the bed to wrap his body around hers and gently rock her back and forth, trying to ease her pain.  
  
She sighed and shuddered beneath his arms, then said something that made him nearly collapse.  
  
"I'm pregnant."  



	11. It Ain't Over Until The Fat Lady Has Sun...

HOLY COW!!! IT IS PART MOO, er, TWO!!!!! I Am So Excited I Am Taking On The Characteristics Of A Bovine!!!!! Udderly Ridiculous Eh?  
  
Chapter XI  
It Aint Over Until The Fat Lady Has Sung Her Last Tune And Keeled Over  
  
"My, aren't you looking marvelous." A voice from an imperceptible person issued from one of the people blockading her from freedom. Though this was on office party and most of these people worked with everyday, she couldn't for the life of her figure out their names.  
  
"Thank you," Jane managed with a half-hearted, wry smile and nonchalantly tipped her wineglass up to her lips, covering the bottom half of her face as her eyes shot desperately through the party, looking for her husband.  
  
"So how far along are you?" Another person asked, and she reluctantly lowered her glass. "About nine months." She smiled again into the crowd as they threw more questions at her.  
  
"When are you due?"   
  
"Next week." She sipped on her water from the wineglass.   
  
One of her hands was clasped around the glass of water, while her other protectively cradled her swelled belly that bulged out from beneath her new silver gown, still looking like a million dollars.   
  
Eddie had put up objections for Jane to come to the party and stay at home in bed, but she just kept contradicting him and putting on her makeup, ignoring his warnings.   
  
Finally, in the car, they had struck out an agreement that she was only to stay until ten and then she had to be home, in bed.   
  
As soon as they had stepped into the door, they had been separated; a mass of people shoved between them and slowly began moving them away from each other, as if it was a plan.  
  
As Jane's eyes skimmed the crowd of decorated people, more questions bombarded her and she began answering them without forced graciousness.   
  
"Have you found out what it is?"  
  
"It's a girl."  
  
"Oh really, what are you going to name her?"  
  
"Uh, we don't know."  
  
Suddenly, her eyes caught Eddie's head as he stood talking with some bald guy with patches of thinning gray hair neatly combed over. She stared desperately at him for a moment before he finally caught sight of the fact that she was staring at him.  
  
She read his lips as he said, "excuse me," and pushed past the old man, coming towards her. But suddenly, he was intercepted by Ray Brown.   
  
Eddie turned to her in his own desperation and shrugged, signaling that he could go nowhere. Jane sighed and nodded dishearteningly, turning back to the voices still colliding with her ears.  
  
"Uh, pardon me?" She said meekly, trying to step back into the conversation.  
  
"That's quite alright dear," A voice said kindly, "I just said that you should be proud that you have Eddie."   
  
"Yes, I am. Thank you." She tried politely as she looked into the people to see where the comment had come from, but failed.  
  
Jane began to feel exhaustion slide through as she thought desperately for a reason to split. "Uh, excuse me," She thought of a good one, "I have to go to the restroom."  
  
To her surprise, the people split like a gate and allowed her through, and she felt silly waddling around with a kicking fetus supported on her screaming hips. She sighed as she saw freedom in sight, but jumped slightly as a hand grabbed her elbow.  
  
She spun on her heel, seeing Liz smiling lightly at her as they averted their direction into the closed bedroom across the hall from the bathroom.  
  
"I see you saved yourself," Liz whispered into her ear as they closed the door behind them, shutting out the loud music and thunder of conversations.   
  
"Just barely," Jane unintentionally moaned as she sat down at the edge of the bed, her legs spread to allow the settling of her monstrous belly.   
  
Liz laughed and kneeled on the floor in front of Jane, placing a hand on her knee. They sat there a moment and Jane let her head fall back and her eyes close.  
  
"Sucks, doesn't it?" Liz asked, and Jane didn't bother to pick her head up to answer.  
  
"What sucks?"   
  
"Being pregnant." Liz said with a smile and rose from the floor, taking a seat next to Jane on the bed, as she laid out.  
  
"Oh I don't know," she joked and slid back so that she was laying on her back, her hand placed protectively on the top of her stomach. "Looking like a cow, eating like a pig, and having your ankles kill you twenty-four, seven. Yeah. It does."  
  
"Is there anything good about it?" Liz asked hopefully.   
  
"Why? Are you planning to be too?"   
  
"No. Well, I don't know, maybe." She couldn't seem to make up her mind.  
  
"Then, I guess, the good thing about being pregnant is that you get pampered more than you usually would." Jane smiled.  
  
"And Eddie has been sleeping on the couch for the past three months." Jane seemed somewhat depressed as she said it.  
  
"Is that bad?"  
  
"I miss sleeping with him next to me. I think the poor guy's scared."  
  
"Of what?"  
  
"I think he's scared that he's going to screw something up. This is the first baby that he's actually ever been committed to."  
  
"Poor guy," Liz breathed out.  
  
"Yeah," Jane sighed again and began to push herself up, but stopped. "You want to feel something?" Jane asked with a smile.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Give me your hand," Liz allowed Jane to guide her hand across her belly as she tried to find the spot.  
  
"Feel that?" Liz waited for a second, then shook her head.  
  
"Here," Jane moved Liz's hand around again quickly before finally finding it, and Liz smiled enthusiastically.   
  
"Have you figured out a name yet?" Liz asked.  
  
"Eddie and I haven't decided yet, but we're probably going to go along the lines of M or S."  
  
"Just so long as it isn't the name of one of Eddie's girlfriends right?" Liz joked and Jane nodded her head, laughing with her.  
  
"Yeah-" She began to say, but suddenly fell short as he face twisted into pain and she let out a horrifying groan.  
  
"Jane? Jane are you alright?" Liz suddenly turned frantic as she tried desperately to help her friend, who was now writhing on the bed in pain. "Oh shit, what do you want me to do?"  
  
Jane let out another horrible moan and bunched the bed sheets in her fingers, her face passing from wave of pain to wave of pain.   
  
"…Get…Eddie…now…"   
  
"…It's…time…"  



	12. Health Freaks Are Going To Feel Stupid. ...

Chapter XII  
Health Freaks Are Going To Feel Stupid. Lying In Hospitals, Dying Of Nothing  
  
  
"One more push," The doctor urged as Jane let out a scream, her face gleaming with sweat and tears.   
  
A blue, paper sheet was laid across her knees so she couldn't see what was going on, but she did know that this hurt like hell.   
  
She could see Eddie standing next to her and stroking her hair, but she couldn't feel his hand in her ironclad grip.   
  
She felt like there was a building settling down on her stomach and the concrete foundation was slowly shifting and cutting off her legs.  
  
With one final push, giving it everything she had left, she collapsed back in the bed, gasping for air and calming her screaming abdominal muscles. She watched as they carried away a small, pink mass.  
  
After about five minutes, Jane had regained her breath and the room had turned desperately silent. The machines were off and the doctors had summoned Eddie over to them and were talking quietly amongst themselves.  
  
"What?" Jane asked hoarsely as Eddie made a sad glance to her.   
  
"What's going on? Why isn't she crying?" From everything she had learned, a baby was suppose to cry.   
  
"Eddie, tell me what's wrong." Jane's voice turned frantic as she tried to push her beaten body from the bed, and Eddie immediately steered back towards her, pushing her carefully back into the bed and catching hold of her hand.  
  
"Eddie, god dammit, tell me what's going on! Please!" Jane began to cry and trying to pull away from Eddie's hand.  
  
"Jane, calm down." Eddie said chillingly. There was a strange stream of sadness playing through his eyes, but he had no emotion on his face.  
  
Jane succumbed, trying to catch her sobs again as she quieted herself.   
  
"There's a problem."  
  
"Tell me." Jane whimpered  
  
"Jane, she's deaf."  
  
*MOO*  
  
"Bu…Wha…what do you mean, deaf?"   
  
It seemed absurd to her, she had followed every pregnant mother book she could get her hands on, she had eaten right, done no physical exertions, hadn't drunken alcohol, and even got Eddie to stop smoking, it seemed impossible.   
  
"They're saying that the muscles in her ears didn't develop fully." Eddie translated for her, mentally cursing himself as he saw tears fill her eyes.  
  
"But, I did everything…" Jane argued, as if that was going to change anything. "Everything! It can't be true! She can't be deaf. It's not fair!" Jane suddenly went into a fit of sobbing and Eddie gently cradled her against his shoulders, his shirt soaking up her tears.  
  
She wanted it to be like she had always seen it, the mother waiting patiently while doctors in unusually clean garb brought a tiny, wiggling, pink mass that was quiet with huge, glassy blue eyes and set it gently in the mother's arms, everything perfect.  
  
Reality sucked.  
  
"Jane." She could here Eddie's unusually calm voice floating into her ear and she slowly calmed her body-racking sobs, but did not lift her head. "She's alive, and healthy. That's all that matters."   
  
He took her by the shoulders and made her look into his face, though she tried to twist away, he held her firm. "Jane, she's beautiful are you're beautiful and that will never change."  
  
Jane couldn't help but smile through her tears as she once again collapsed against Eddie's chest to cry.   
  
After venting her extra tears, she began to calm down again, Eddie gently settled her back in the bed, propping up the pillows so that Jane was somewhat sitting up. She wiped the tears away from her eyes as she saw them bringing the wiggling mass toward her.  
  
Without taking her eyes off of her baby, Jane gently reached over and latched onto Eddie's arm and drug him down so he was squatting/sitting at the same height as Jane.  
  
She reached out her hands as the doctors gently laid the baby in her arms, the tiny pink head with blue/green eyes peeked up out of a bundle of pink blankets and a couple strands of jet black hair shadowed her round head.  
  
Eddie straightened up and leaned over to the side of Jane's head, admiring the tiny creature flexing tiredly in her mother's securing arms.   
  
"What are we going to name her?" Eddie asked, smiling gently at the blue/green eyed pink thing that seemed to stifle a yawn and giggle silently back. He wagged a finger in front of her, and she latched onto it, his fingertip immediately lost in her mouth.  
  
"I think…" Jane thought it over for a moment, ever so gently bouncing the new weight in her arms. "I'll call her China…"  
  
"China…" Eddie let it ring through his ears as he brought his forehead against Jane's, looking at her from beneath his eyebrows and back to the baby with an agreeing nod.   
  
Then he raised his head and kissed Jane delicately on the lips - the baby still orally latched to his finger - and agreed. "She's beautiful."   



	13. After Observation - Parenting Is Much Li...

CHAPTER XIII  
After Observation - Parenting Is Much Like Trying To Staple Jell-O To A Tree  
  
"Oh, come here baby…" Jane said in a comical, soft tone as she picked up the whaling infant from her crib. "Shh - shh, shh, shh, shh…" She tried to calm Mickey by bouncing her on her shoulder, but soon became tired of the ringing in her ear.  
  
"What's the matter?" She coddled, moving China out in front of her to look at the baby's crumpled, red face - but mostly to get her screams away from her ear.  
  
"Come on now, we don't want to wake daddy, do we?" Jane resumed bouncing the child in her arms, walking around the room with a hop in her step.  
  
"Too late," A groggy voice floated from the doorway and Jane turned to see Eddie standing there. His hair was wild and his boxer shorts were rumpled around his waist, large, sleep-deprived bags shadowing his eyes.  
  
"Aw." Jane cooed as she beckoned Eddie over to her as China began to quiet down. She was only a week old, and they were already having trouble.   
  
He took the baby from Jane's arms and China immediately increased her scream/crying. "Are you sure we can't get a refund on this thing?" Eddie asked, moving her away from his ear. "Or at least a built-in volume control?"  
  
"Ha, ha." Jane said sarcastically, gently slapping him on the butt as she walked out of the dark bedroom, heading toward the kitchen. Eddie followed her out, his steps slow and dragging as he slid across the cold floor.  
  
"She's just hungry." Jane explained as she looked through the fridge for a bottle and milk. She went searching through the cupboard for a pan to heat up the milk in.  
  
"So I've noticed." Eddie mentioned. She turned to see him seated at the counter on a barstool, his finger trapped inside China's gummed mouth.  
  
Jane smiled and turned back to her task, waiting until the milk was at the right temperature, tested it on her arm, then filled the bottle and brought it to Eddie, who had a bit of trouble freeing his finger, but eventually was successful.   
  
As China was quietly feeding, Jane came and sat down next to Eddie, who immediately slumped onto her shoulder, closing his eyes.  
  
"…So…tired…" He whined, handing the still-feeding China over to Jane before his arms went limp.  
  
"I know baby," Jane leaned her head against the top of his, watching China sleepily suckle on the bottle. "These are just road bumps." She tried.  
  
"You mean 'traffic jams'…" Eddie corrected, the last words slipping from his tongue like the last breath of a dying man, and a rolling snore continued his sentence as Jane smiled to herself.  
  
She sat there a moment, noticing that the bottle had meandered from China's mouth and was clasped in her small, pudgy hands as she slept.   
  
Jane smiled, both her babies sleeping on her shoulders as she finally felt a roll of fatigue thunder through her.  
  
She cringed as she began to move her arm up, gently supporting Eddie's head and easing it onto the counter, cowering as his skull hit the counter with a heavy thump.  
  
Now free from her heaviest deadweight, Jane silently and carefully slipped from the barstool. She laid China back into her crib - undisturbed - and walked back out into the kitchen, despite the fact that the bed was calling her name.  
  
She stifled a laugh as she saw Eddie try to get comfortable on the hard countertop, folding his arms like a pillow.   
  
"Come on sleepy head, time to go to bed." Jane gently shook his arm and roused him from sleep, his voice warm and fuzzy.   
  
"Sleep?" He asked pitifully, and she couldn't help but giggle lightly as she lifted his arm over her shoulder and tried to help him up.   
  
"Oomph!" She grunted as she pulled him up from the barstool, his weight overpowering her as they began to tilt. "Eddie!" She said loud enough to startle him awake.  
  
"What?" He asked imperceptibly, noticing his tilted angle and lazily supporting himself.   
  
"We have to go to the bedroom."   
  
"…Why?…"  
  
"Because that's where we sleep."  
  
"…O…kay…" He was so tired he seemed reluctant to move from his spot.   
  
"I'm not dragging your ass all the way to the bedroom, you have to make an effort to walk." Jane laughed as he stumbled on the first step.  
  
After successfully sliding/lurching into the room, Jane immediately headed for the bed and was suddenly brought down as Eddie collapsed into it, trapping her by his side with his arm, he was fast asleep.  
  
Jane smiled and shook her head, craning her neck to kiss him, even though she could only successfully reach his own neck.  
  
"Sweet dreams."   



	14. If You See The Light At The End Of The T...

CHAPTER XIV  
If You See The Light At The End Of The Tunnel - Turn Tail And Run Like Hell  
  
"~Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear China, happy birthday to you!~" Jane's and Eddie's voices rang out through the house, only to be heard by deaf ears.  
  
But Jane was signing as she was singing.  
  
As they finished they're song, China clapped wildly, a smile splitting her tiny face.   
  
She looked hungrily down at the small, white cake with a giant candle in the shape of a six, stuck squarely in the middle. Blue icing was clumped around the edges and pink flowers cradled in the corner.  
  
Taking as big a breath she could fit into her tiny lungs, China puffed out her chest and blew as hard as she could, succeeding in blowing out the candles and a little bit of frosting across the table.  
  
Then her parents clapped ecstatically, bringing out a knife to cut the cake with.   
  
'You look silly' China signed, smiling broadly as she watched her dad push his pointed party hat higher onto his head.  
  
'Oh really?' Eddie signed jokingly, deviously setting the knife down in mid slice and attacking China with a tickle torture.   
  
China screamed silently and wriggled out from his arms, running to her mother and hiding behind her, sticking out her tongue at him. 'You can't get me!'  
  
'Playing hard to get, huh?' Eddie roared like a lion as he came forward, crashing around the table and sending the two girls into a scurry through the apartment, screaming humorously.  
  
Their chase lasted for about ten minutes before Eddie came around the corner of the counter a tad too fast and smacked his ankle onto one of the barstools, ending his chase exhausted and wounded.  
  
"Baby, are you okay?" Jane asked, noticing the pain on Eddie's face and going to him as he hobbled for the couch.  
  
"Yeah," He said between choking breaths, sitting down on the couch and supporting his wounded leg horizontal across his other knee as he examined his ankle, no outside damage to it.  
  
"You sure?" Jane asked, taking a look at his ankle herself, not looking up when China emerged from her hiding spot from the bathroom with a confused expression on her face.  
  
'Your daddy hurt his foot, but he'll be okay' Jane signed, clearing China's confusion.   
  
China nodded understandingly and cautiously approached her father, a grin tugging at the side of her mischievous mouth.  
  
Like a hawk swooping in for the kill, China ran forward, placed a kiss on her dad's ankle to make it feel better and scrambled away from him as if he might try to reach out and catch her.  
  
Instead, Eddie let his head roll back on the couch and let out a laugh, more trying to get his mind off the pain.  
  
"I'll get you some Advil." Jane said, catching Eddie's lips in hers momentarily as she passed to the bathroom.  
  
After a moment of shuffling through the medicine cupboard, Jane emerged with a sad look on her face. "It's gone." She showed him, then tossed the empty bottle single-handedly into the garbage can.  
  
"That's alright," Eddie said between lifting himself from the couch and a grunt of pain. "I'll just walk down to the drugstore." He began hobbling towards the door.  
  
"Are you sure?" Jane asked skeptically, watching him lurch to the apartment door, grabbing his coat. "We could come with you."  
  
"No, it'll just take a second." Eddie reassured her, throwing his wallet into his coat pocket and opening the door, turning back. "You two open some presents,"  
  
"What about you?"  
  
"I'll look at 'em when I get back, you better not keep China waiting." He nodded his head toward what he was speaking about.  
  
China was staring intently at the small pyramid of presents stacked in the middle of the living room, licking her lips enticingly.  
  
"Besides," Eddie added with a dismissive smile. "It's not gonna to kill me."  
  
*MOO*  
  
Jane chewed on her bottom lip as she flipped through television stations unconsciously, her other hand stroking China's black hair as she slept against her mother's thigh.  
  
Jane glanced at the clock on the wall, noticing that Eddie's "second" had become four hours. She sighed somewhat angrily, and looked down at China, momentarily forgetting her troubles.  
  
A rainbow teddy bear was wrapped tight in China's arms and brightly colored wrapping paper was scattered about them. They had only opened two presents, vowing to wait until Eddie would return.  
  
Flashing blue and red lights caught her attention as she turned back to the television, seeing a quirky reporter standing awkwardly with a series of dark buildings behind him.  
  
Iridescent, yellow police tape shifted nervously in the night air as the light man had trouble keeping aim on the reporter who looked too calm to be reporting an accident.  
  
"We're live on the scene of what appears to be-" Jane was suddenly disturbed from the television when a loud knock at her door disrupted her listening.  
  
Sighing loudly, she gently pushed China from her lap, getting another series of impatient knocks at the door.   
  
"Hold on." She called, pushing her hair back from her face as she opened the door a little more rudely than what she had intended to.   
  
"Yeah?" Jane froze as she saw a large, round police officer in uniform standing in her doorway, his eyes sunken into his head and his huge nose nearly consuming his face.  
  
"Are you Mrs. Jane Alden?" His grave voice sent a chill up Jane's spine and distributed it into a series of tingles along her scalp.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"A Mr. Eddie Alden's wife?" The cop looked at a wallet in his hands, and Jane immediately recognized it as Eddie's.  
  
"Y-es." She suddenly felt herself go weak as she leaned against the door, knowing that she was not about to like what he had to say next.  
  
"I'm sorry ma'am, but your husband has been shot."  



	15. Never Forget That The Most Powerful Forc...

Chapter XV  
Never Forget That The Most Powerful Force On Earth Is Love  
  
Jane nervously licked her dry lips, her shaking hand reluctant to form around the cool door handle, her fingers shaking uncontrollably.   
  
She had done this before, seen the same things, feared the same things, and more or less experienced the same things, but she still was not prepared.   
  
She fretted what lay beyond the closed doors, in the room with the pasty walls and the machinery, but she knew she had to go in.  
  
She didn't understand quite why everything always had to happen the way they did, but she knew it was too late to help it. Sure, she still felt guilty.  
  
A tug at her other hand made her tumble from thought.   
  
'Mommy?' China signed, a sad look of worry floundering in her big, blue eyes. 'Are you okay?'  
  
Jane nodded, her voice buried in the dark recesses of her stomach and her hands too shaky to sign. She sniffed back defiantly and signed, 'yeah baby, mommy's okay'  
  
China nodded, despite the worry and now reluctance in her eyes and gave Jane's hand a squeeze of reassurance.   
  
Suddenly, something boiled up in Jane and she sank to her knees, her tear-filled eyes staring into China's.  
  
'Do you understand what happened to your daddy?' Jane signed, forcing her fingers to work.  
  
China nodded, wet, doe eyes shining in the hallway lights.  
  
'A gun hurt him'  
  
'I know' China signed back. Then she paused, 'why?'  
  
Jane tried to break it down. 'Remember when daddy went to the store for some medicine for his foot? Well, there was a very angry man there and he…he got scared of your daddy, and he shot him'  
  
China furrowed her tiny eyebrows, not liking the story her mother was telling her. Tears began to well in her big eyes and shimmered sadly in the lights. 'But he'll get better, right?'  
  
Jane felt her eyes burn with tears as they streamed down her face and she pulled China against her, rocking her back and forth as more of a comfort to herself than to China.  
  
"Yeah baby, he'll be okay." Jane said aloud, even though they were not heard. She knew China could understand.  
  
China finally pushed her mom away, her eyes still wide with worry and sorrow and anything else she could pack in their that reminded Jane of Eddie, and she had to choke down the urge to cry out.  
  
'Can we go in now?' China signed, peering deep inside her mom's head.  
  
'Sure'   
  
Jane rose to her feet, shook off another sob, and took a deep breath, forcing herself to open the incredibly heavy door.   
  
It took a minute for Jane's eyes to adjust to the dimness of the room, only an overhead bar light illuminated the space above the bed, as opposed to the blazing lights of the hallway.  
  
She wiped away the tears from her eyes with one hand and held tightly onto China's hand.   
  
A rock started forming in her throat, as her watery eyes fell upon what she dreaded. She took in the formalities of the recent situation, again beholding her accident-prone husband as he lay recumbence in the hospital bed.  
  
Eddie's pallor matched the pale wallpaper again, but unfortunately it was plagued with a deep, black bruise about his left eye, almost swelling it useless. More bruises were set across his cheeks and his jaw seemed to tilt at an odd angle.   
  
An air hose was pushed down his throat, and an accordion-like pump hissed and belched air in and out of his renouncing body, forcing him to stay alive. From his eyebrows up, his forehead was wrapped in gauze, a bloom of blood pushing out from above his left eye.  
  
He looked inhuman, so many tubes and wires twisting and snaking in and out of his body that Jane's head began to hurt when she tried to follow them back to the machinery piled around him.  
  
"Dammit Eddie." Jane hissed at herself, noticing that China was peacefully staring at her father lying in a coma on the bed.   
  
China pulled on Jane's hand, China's eyes refusing to tear away from her father.   
  
'Mommy?' China signed, pulling her finger's loose from her mom's grip. 'Can I go see daddy?'  
  
'You have to be careful, you can't touch him'   
  
'Why?' The worry swam back into her eyes.  
  
'Because he has to get better' Jane looked at her compassionately.   
  
'What's all the stuff on him?'  
  
'Do you remember when you hurt your finger?' China nodded. 'And we had to put a band-aid on it to make it better? This stuff is to make daddy better and we can't touch it until he does get better' China nodded in understanding again, her eyes wandering back to her dad.  
  
China sighed heavily enough to sink her shoulders and puffed out her cheeks, something she did when making an incredibly huge decision.  
  
'Okay' She signed halfheartedly as she walked carefully towards the bed, turning back to her mother as she was halfway there.  
  
Jane put a finger to her lips, telling China to be as quiet as possible and Jane couldn't help but laugh as China nodded her head with big eyes and teeth showing and tiptoed carefully again towards the bed, slower this time.  
  
Eventually, China made it over to the bed and was looking around curiously, until she found what she was looking for.  
  
With a silent grunt, she drug a large chair over so that it was as close as she could possibly get it to her father's bed and crawled into it, surveying her new territory.   
  
From this new height China could take in everything from a new angle, she could see the wounds on her dad, his black and white face, the hoses and wires going into him, and she realized what her mom was talking about.  
  
Jane moved closer to the bed, standing next to China's chair and looking worriedly down at Eddie's still face.  
  
"Hi." A sudden voice startled her and Jane whirled around on her heel, confronting an oddly beautiful woman standing in the doorway.   
  
Her jet-black hair was slicked smooth against her head and a pair of stunning, dark, japanese-shaped eyes were hidden behind a seventy's style pair of glasses. A series of piercings glistened on both eyebrows, perforated her nose, and lined the outside of both her ears.  
  
She wore torn and faded jeans that seemed about one step away from falling off of her legs in tatters, and from the holes, Jane could tell she was wearing fishnet stockings beneath.   
  
Jane also noticed that when the woman - no, she seemed too young - when the girl spoke, a barbell ring clicked against her teeth from a hole in her tongue. Jane absentmindedly rubbed her tongue against her teeth, wondering what it felt like to have a piece of metal jabbed through her tongue.  
  
"I'm Dr. Zigman, but you can call me Laura." The woman - er - girl smiled politely and wasted no time into going over and fiddling with a couple catheters in Eddie.  
  
Jane's brain coughed and chugged as it slowly clunked into action, lamely taking in the greeting and coming up with a reply.  
  
"…Hi…I'm Jane Alden." She said, forcing a lopsided smile at the doctor.  
  
"Let me guess…spouse?" Laura looked up and smiled and Jane nodded grimly.  
  
Suddenly, Laura's dark eyes turned to China who was sitting patiently and silently next to her father.  
  
"Well hey there cutie." Laura smiled brightly, her heavy black shoes clumping across the floor as she floated towards China.  
  
"She can't hear you, she's deaf." Jane found herself automatically saying, blowing out air through her nose and wrapping her arms around her as she felt a chill run down her spine.  
  
"That's okay," Laura bent to the eye level of China. 'What's your name?' Laura signed as if it was second nature.  
  
Surprisingly, China seemed to instantly like Laura and trust her, which was unusual because China barely trusted Liz, probably because Liz couldn't get the hang of sign language.  
  
'China' She signed back, smiling happily.  
  
'That's a very pretty name. How about you and I go get something to eat? Say, some candy?'   
  
China looked from Laura, to her dad - who lay unresponsive - and finally to her mother who seemed reluctant but in conclusion nodded her acceptance.   
  
'Yeah! Let's go!' Laura took China by the hand and allowed her to jump from the chair onto the ground.  
  
As they were about halfway to the door, China suddenly stopped and turned with a worried look shading her face.  
  
Without a sound, China tore loose from Laura's hand and ran back and scrambled back into the chair. She found a proper foundation for her hands on the rail at the side of Eddie's bed and gently leaned over, planting the softest kiss she could on her father's cheek.  
  
Then, having finished her deed, jumped down from the chair and trotted back to Laura, allowing her to take her hand again.   
  
And as they left the room, to leave Jane to her mind and husband, China turned back and signed.  
  
'I love you'   



	16. Put A Quarter In And Enjoy A Ride On The...

Chapter XVI  
Put A Quarter In And Enjoy A Ride On The Six Second Carousel  
  
Jane yawned tiredly as she shuffled back to Eddie's room, a steaming paper cup of coffee sloshing in her hand.   
  
Both China and Jane had been awake for more than forty-eight hours and the effect was already taking hold.   
  
Eddie's doctor - Laura - had entered and exited randomly throughout the time, always bringing something for China to do, anything to keep her busy.  
  
Jane didn't quite no why, but China had taken a real liking to Laura and soon the pair were almost inseparable. China would follow Laura around and ask what she was doing to her father and the machines that were all around him, and Laura would answer every question thrown to her.  
  
From what Jane could put together from the interrogation by the police officer in her apartment and from what Laura had been telling her, Eddie had been shot above the left eye. The bullet hadn't been very accurate, because it had hit at a lucky angle, which displaced its embedding into his skull, instead making it bounce off.  
  
But the bad part to the story was that the bullet had knocked him off balance and he had fallen backwards and smashed his head on the pavement, which had done the damage to his brain and sent him into the coma.  
  
She kept having these horrible depictions of what the police officer had told her about Eddie being fully conscious when they had arrived, and he kept trying to get up, saying that he had to get back home to his daughter's birthday party.  
  
Jane wiped the tears away from her eyes with one hand and opened the door with the other, compassion and surprise overtaking her as she saw what lay in the room.  
  
China was curled comfortably between her father's chest and arm, her head sideways on her dad's chest and her eyes open, a nest of the blanket covering both her and her father.  
  
China smiled meekly at Jane as she noticed her standing there and closed her eyes, trying to hide away from her mother. When she finally summed up the courage to peek out from beneath her eyelids, she was confronted with a half-hearted scolding.   
  
'Remember what I said about not touching daddy? He has to get better' Jane signed, already having set the coffee down on a table next to a big, puffy chair.   
  
'I know' China brought her hands out from beneath the blanket. 'He told me to'  
  
'Honey' Jane sighed again 'Daddy can't tell you to do anything, he's asleep.'  
  
'I know' Her big, blue eyes suddenly filled with tears as she put on her sad face.   
  
Jane came forward and China hunkered down into the blanket, signaling that she was not moving from her new spot.  
  
'Do you want to color another picture for daddy?' Jane tried, momentarily averting her journey so that she picked up a large red crayon and a coloring book Laura had brought in for China.  
  
China shook her head, hiding her face against her father's side.  
  
'Baby, you have to get out of there, he's not going get better if we -'  
  
Jane stopped dead in her tracks as Eddie coughed, a wet, weak noise that sounded little more than a choking wheeze. This was his first sign of movement or life he had expressed since before the second accident.  
  
Jane immediately dropped the book and crayon and ran to her husband's side, clasping onto his hand with one shaking hand while she pushed the call button with the other, over and over, so many times that she was still pushing as Laura came back into the room.  
  
"What's up?" Laura asked coolly, still dressed in the same attire, except now she had a stethoscope slung over her neck like all the doctors on the crappy soaps do.  
  
"He's waking up." Jane's words were so quiet that Laura barely heard her, but from the wheezing noise coming from Eddie, she figured it out.  
  
"Well, well, well, rise and shine sunshine patriot." Laura smiled, checking the vital statistics on the monitors about him and finally seemed to come to a conclusion.  
  
China lay quiet against him, her eyes closed and her ear still against his chest.   
  
"Jane?" Laura called into Jane's fixed face, her eyes glued to her husband. "Jane? Hello?" She gently poked her in the arm to help her from her catatonic state.  
  
"Huh? What?" Jane mumbled, shaking the absent thoughts from her head and forcing her body to move.  
  
"Could you move China, maybe take her somewhere? I have to get rid of the tube." Laura knew that the whole - pulling the tube from her father's throat - would probably not go over well with China or her mother.  
  
"I'll call you when you can come back in." Laura smiled as she began to ready Eddie and the equipment around him for his surfacing consciousness.   
  
Jane nodded and reluctantly released Eddie's limp hand, pulling China from her father with great problem. China suddenly turned violent as Jane carried her away, savagely beating her mother's back and shoulders as she screamed violently and shed boiling tears.  
  
As soon as the door was shut behind them, Laura went on professionally with her work. She gently folded down the covers and gingery checked his swollen eye, startled when Eddie's hand shot up and grabbed onto her.  
  
"Hey Superman, you awake?" She asked as if she were asking her boyfriend, allowing Eddie to take his time and eventually open his hazy brown eyes to an alien room.  
  
He blinked a couple of times and tensed what could in his body.  
  
"Eddie, do you know where you are?"  
  
A weak shake of his head followed.  
  
"You're in the hospital. Do you know how you got here?"  
  
Another shake of his head.  
  
"You were shot, you've been in a coma for three days now." Laura said matter-of-factly, noticing that he had a flickering remembrance of it and immediately closed his eyes, turning away.  
  
"Alright Eddie, now I'm going to move your head so that we can get the tube out easier." She talked him through it, trying to move his head as little as possible so as not to bruise or damage his brain anymore than what the fall had done.  
  
After a meek gasp and positioning his head so that his chin was tilted up in the air like a horizontal sword-swallower, she put on a pair of plastic gloves and moved a bed pan within fluid reach, then gripped the tube in his throat with both hands.  
  
"Okay, Eddie, I want you to put your hand on the right rail. Right, yeah, that's good. Now I want you to take the deepest inhale you can and blow it all out as hard and as fast as you can. Ready?"  
  
Eddie didn't bother nodding, instead, he commanded his aching chest to fill with as much air as possible and as he felt he was about to burst, the doctor wrenched the tube from his throat.  
  
The extraction was quickly followed by explosion of bile and empty stomach contents brutally retaliating against the withdrawal of the tube from his esophagus, which sent him into a choking war between gasping, puking, and gagging.  
  
After about five minutes, Eddie collapsed back into the pillow, his face ashen and his hair wild and wet and bile dribbling from his chin.   
  
"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Laura laughed as she quickly threw away the tubing and bagged the gloves, throwing them into a sterilized bag along with everything else they had just used. Then she took a towel and wiped the dribble from his chin without a second look, allowing him to reclaim his breath.   
  
Eddie gave her a reckless sideways glare before doubling over into another coughing fit. Laura helped steady him and waited until he was done to begin untying the now-stained paper gown from his back.  
  
He sat silently as she pulled it away, crumpled it up, and threw it away in the trash, pausing momentarily to inspect the scar from the removal of his appendix with her fingers.  
  
"What happened here?" She asked, more to herself then to Eddie.  
  
She looked back up to Eddie's face and smiled as he refused to look at her, his eyes trailing elsewhere in the room.   
  
"So," She said, pulling him forward so that his head settled against her shoulder so she could tie a new paper gown around him. "Your wife's pretty."  
  
Eddie shot a half-hearted, disapproving look in her general direction as she helped settle him back and pull the blankets back up to his shoulders.   
  
"Touchy subject, huh?" Laura laughed.  
  
Eddie closed his eyes and began lifting his head and breathing becoming irregular as he tried to form words.  
  
"…Wh…y…can…t…I…see…?" He finally choked out, his voice barely an audible, rasping whisper.  
  
Laura stitched her eyebrows, taking out her spotlight pen and shining it into Eddie's only good eye, then she moved her finger back and forth in front of his face, but his eye stayed transfixed in one spot.  
  
"I don't know, we'll have to take you down for a CAT scan, hold on." She said, turning towards the intercom.   
  
As she turned back to ready the bed for mobility, Eddie haphazardly caught her by the arm.  
  
She waited as he built up his breath to say what he wanted to say.  
  
"P…lease…get…Jane…"  
  
*MOO*  
  
China had her face stuck against the cold glass, her breath spreading a thin sheet of fog across it each time she breathed out. But unlike the glass at the apartment in the winter, there was a strange room beyond, not familiar buildings.  
  
The blue line scanned down her dad's body as the bed moved up within the donut shaped machine. She didn't understand why they couldn't be in there with him, and it made her scared and angry at the same time.  
  
Jane was standing next to Laura behind a row of computers on the other side of the same room China was in.   
  
"Let me get this straight," Jane tried to explain it to herself aloud. "Eddie can't see because the swelling from his brain is blocking something in his eyes?" Jane lifted her head from her hand, looking back out to where Eddie lay patient.  
  
"More or less." Laura said gravely, the first time Jane had never seen expression on her face besides happiness.  
  
"How long until the swelling starts to go down?" Jane asked, chewing on her bottom lip as she looked over to China, who's small, round face was now looking in her direction.  
  
'I want daddy' China's big eyes shined in the lights as she puffed out her cheeks in frustration, looking longingly toward her father in the other room. She had not seen him since she was pulled reluctantly from him earlier.  
  
'I know baby' was all Jane could sign back, confusion static in her head as she tried to force down new things that threatened to rise back up.   
  
"I don't know, it could be about a week."  
  
"A week?" Jane thought about it, looking back at her husband as if it would help make a decision for her.  
  
"…Hello?…" Eddie's voice came weak through the intercom that connected the two rooms.  
  
"Yeah baby?" Jane pushed the button, her voice collapsing over the small room with a violent thunder and Jane was hushed into a whisper.  
  
"…Jane…" Eddie's voice was unusually calm. "…What…s…going….on…?"   
  
"Dr. Zigman says that your brain is swelling, that's why you can't see." Jane bit on her lip, trying desperately not to tumble into tears.   
  
"…Oh…" He seemed to think about it silently.  
  
"…When…can…we…go…ho…me…?" He asked.  
  
"Soon baby," She said, cutting off the line before he heard her begin to cry. She immediately collected herself and turned to Laura. "Can we go in there now?"  
  
"Yeah, sure." Laura stood where she was as Jane walked over and took China gently by the hand, leading her towards the door.  
  
Jane missed her catch as China clambered up onto the bed and stood over her dad, her mother's hands protectively around her waist.  
  
'Daddy?' China signed, turning to her mother when he didn't answer back.  
  
'He's blind' Jane signed.   
  
'What's blind?'  
  
'It's when you can't see'  
  
China nodded understandably and turned back to her father, reaching down carefully and touching him on the arm, drawing back when he moved toward her direction.  
  
"That was China," Jane said soothingly, finally releasing China with one hand and taking hold in his.  
  
'…Come…here…' Eddie held up his arms, bidding China to come to him.  
  
Jane reluctantly released China, who sat down to gently straddle her father's lower ribs, looking into his face.  
  
He smiled, raising a finger to tickle her tummy.  
  
'…Hey…sunshine…I….missed you…'   



	17. I Have A Rock Garden. Last Week Three Of...

Chapter XVII  
I Have A Rock Garden. Last Week Three Of Them Died. The Poor Buggers.   
  
"Jane?" Laura's voice came softly from behind her and she turned from her sleeping husband to face the perforated doctor with a weary smile.   
  
Laura smiled in kind then finished what she was going to say. "I'm ready to discuss the operation if you would like." She stood in the doorway, a clipboard clasped in her arm and her piercings glistening in the lights.  
  
Jane paused and looked down to China who lay sleeping on her shoulder, her tiny eyelids fluttering unconsciously as she dreamt. Then she looked back to her husband, who lay resting in the bed with his hand loosely clasped around hers, their finger's interlocked.  
  
"Unless of course, you'd like to go into a different room," Laura mentioned.  
  
"No," Jane said tiredly. "It would be best for Eddie to hear too."  
  
"Well, should I come back later?" Laura walked into the room slowly; chewing on her thumbnail as her dark eyes switched from China to Eddie to Jane.  
  
"No," Jane sighed again, "we better get this over with."   
  
Laura nodded and came forward, freeing Jane's left arm of supporting China as she took the sleeping child into her arms.   
  
She carefully shifted China up onto her shoulder with little more than a tired moan from China as she settled back into slumber. Then she watched Jane gently stroke Eddie's arm until he awakened.  
  
Eddie groaned at the disturbance, shifting carefully up in the bed as he re-realized where he was and what his current situation was.   
  
"It's okay baby, it's me." Jane leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, her face weighted with lack of sleep. "Laura's here to discuss what we're going to do." She waited until he nodded his acceptance, then turned back to Laura to get on with things.  
  
Laura took a deep breath as she pulled up a chair and sat down, China still sleeping heavily on her shoulder.   
  
"Could you please open the manila envelope on the back of the clipboard, Jane?" Laura asked, her hands holding up China and useless as far as any sort of operation went.  
  
Jane opened the envelope with one hand, refusing to let go of Eddie's with the other.  
  
Eventually, Jane pulled out the x-rays from the CAT scan earlier that day. But from Jane's tired eyes, they looked more like a spider had been squished against the plastic sheet and oozed blue blood all over it.  
  
"Okay, the first one on the top of the pile, yeah, that one. That black spot near the back is the hematoma that's causing your sight deprivation." Laura looked up from the x-ray to Eddie, who nodded, even though he couldn't see what was going on.   
  
"There are two procedures to get rid of your hematoma, one called SCD and the other is SER, unfortunately there is only a specialist that does SCD here in this hospital, and I figured that you wouldn't want to be flown clear over to Minnesota for the other one."  
  
She paused in case they wanted to object, but neither did, instead Jane nodded intently, interest pushing through her exhaustion, so Laura continued.  
  
"Wait a minute," Eddie said from the side, before Dr. Zigman could get out her next word. "What's SCD?"  
  
"SCD stands for stereotactic catheter drainage, which basically means we go in and drain the fluid from the hematoma." He only stared in her general direction, kind of looking more over her shoulder than straight at her, but he didn't know and she didn't care.  
  
"Being a doctor, I'm paid to tell you everything." She smiled encouragingly. "So, the good part about SCD is that it's a simple, precise, safe, and brief procedure with very low rebleeding and mortality rates…" Laura's face was calm in the lights.  
  
"And the bad part?" Jane asked timidly, looking to Eddie, who only stared in the direction of Laura. She gave his hand a squeeze and he returned the squeeze without turning away from Laura.  
  
"The bad part is that symptoms from the surgery don't show themselves until later on." Laura said informatively.  
  
Jane sniffed and mulled over it for a bit, before spitting out another question.  
  
"Is there any chance of complications?" Her eyes shimmered sadly.  
  
"Unfortunately, there are," Laura said calmly, "Side-effects from the medications, the possibility of hemorrhagic stroke, and maybe even problems while the surgery is taking place are all possible complications."  
  
Jane didn't want to know what kind of problems could occur during the surgery, so she didn't ask. Instead, she just stared at Laura, not knowing what to say.  
  
"But I wouldn't worry," Laura noted Jane's staring and tried to ease her discomfort. "Our surgeon is highly skilled and his patient's often do exceedingly well in recovery."  
  
"Speaking of which," Laura mentioned as she just thought of it. "I scheduled a meeting with him for you, if you would like to meet him." She looked at Jane, who nodded calmly and then to Eddie, who seemed to think over it before finally nodding his acceptance.  
  
"Alright then," Laura smiled and rose from her chair, gently passing back China to her mother and beginning to walk to the door. "I'll have the receptionist call him down, while you two talk it over."  
  
She smiled one last time as she closed the door behind her, leaving them to scrutinize and understand all that she had poured into their laps.   
  
But instead, Jane and Eddie sat in complete silence, having no clue what to say or do or discuss. Jane sighed shakily and shifted China onto her other shoulder, the girl's elbow digging into her ribs.  
  
"I don't know how I feel about all this," Eddie said awkwardly, turning in the general direction of Jane.   
  
"Me neither," Jane chewed on her bottom lip, "but Laura seems to approve of it, and she's our best bet on anything right now."   
  
"Yeah," Eddie sighed, "you're right." There was a moment of silence before he spoke up again. "Where's China?"  
  
"She's here," Jane said calmly, looking down at China's sleepy face. "Killing my arms," She added, feeling her muscles begin to shake with tension.  
  
"Here," Eddie held out his arms, "put her up here." Cautiously, Jane lifted China up into her father's arms, allowing him to cradle her against his chest as he settled back into the pillows again, closing his eyes.  
  
Jane stared at them for a moment, not noticing the small smile that was creeping across her face. They were just so beautiful, her two baby's lying calm in the middle of something so big, it was a shame it couldn't last forever.  
  
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door and Laura stuck her head through, smiling wonderingly at Jane. "You can come in," Jane stood, smoothing the creases in her tee shirt as both Dr. Zigman and the surgeon came in.  
  
"Jane, I'd like you to meet Dr. Richard L. King, your neurosurgeon." Laura smiled broadly as Jane shook his strong hand. Her eyes playing over the man's crisp, extraordinary features.  
  
He had a shock of jet-black hair that was so dark it almost shimmered purple in the lights of the room. He had thick, rich eyebrows and eyes that were an explosion of blue and green, incredibly beautiful.  
  
His face was square and angular, coming to well-shaped corners and curves that were tinted with a golden light. And his white and blue garb accented his striking features with such a tone that he seemed to glow.  
  
"Hello Mrs. Alden, it's a pleasure to meet you." He smiled broadly, his pearly white teeth shining unnaturally in the lights.   
  
And his voice was a force to be reckoned with, it sounded almost as though the words he produced dripped from his tongue like honey, tinted with a slight German accent.  
  
"H-h-hi…" Jane stuttered, completely in a state of shock.  
  
Laura smiled in understanding of the situation and shuffled toward Jane, lying a hand on her shoulder and bringing her back to reality.  
  
"And this is her husband Eddie," Laura introduced them, watching Eddie nod in compliment, unable to move both because of China and having no clue where the neurosurgeon was at this moment.  
  
"So this is my patient," Dr. King boomed, smiling again, Laura having to help Jane sit back down before she fell down.  
  
It was probably a good thing Eddie was blind at the moment; he wouldn't have liked Jane staring the way she did at Dr. King. But he had been surrounded by a whole bunch of women doctors, so why doesn't she get to have some fun?  
  
Dr. King took Laura's seat, next to Jane, and closed the little circle they had allianced before. He gently folded his left ankle on top of his right knee and sat with a straight posture.  
  
"I've already told them about your specialty and have roughly explained to them what the procedure is, but you may want to fill them in on the details." Laura smiled as she stood behind Jane's chair, her eyes trailing from the surgeon, to Eddie.  
  
The neurosurgeon clapped his hands together as though he were hyped up for a big game and leaned forward in the chair, untangling his feet.  
  
"Basically, the steps you'll be experiencing are as follows; first, we'll need to shave your head so that we will be able to see what we're doing. Second, you'll be induced with a heavy anesthesia that will put you into a deep and pain-free sleep."  
  
He paused, thinking about something. "Should I sugar-coat it, or get on with it?" He asked, wanting to know which road to take.  
  
"Just get on with it," Eddie said, wanting to know everything that they were going to do to him.  
  
"Alright, third, we'll drill three holes into the back of your skull - called burrholes - localized around the general area of the hematoma. Then, having done that, we'll, or actually, I'll insert ICP monitoring catheter and a pencil-tip sized camera into the holes to help me see what I'm doing and monitor everything."  
  
"Most likely we will have to remove a section of the skull about the size of a golf ball in order to puncture the hematoma and drain its contents. Then we'll administer urokinase, which induces the re-growth of tissue and plasma to re-grow the tissue we had to cut away."  
  
"And lastly, before you know it, you'll be out on the golf course hitting holes-in-one and drinking beer with your buddies." He smiled again, signaling he was done, and all Jane could do was blink in confusion.   
  
She slowly turned to Eddie, whose pallor seemed to have drop a shade or two, but otherwise sat stiffly in the bed, China still wrapped in his arms.  
  
"Alright," Eddie said coldly, breaking the silence. "Sounds good." He lied.  
  
"Great," Dr. King smiled ecstatically, his brain alive with the image of a new BMW sitting nicely in his garage. "Have Mr. Alden ready at six o'clock sharp."   
  
And with that, Dr. Richard L. King was out the door.  
  
Laura seemed reluctant to move, but eventually did when nothing went on, leaving the two alone.   
  
Silently, Eddie turned in the direction of Jane, his face slick of any emotion.  
  
"I don't golf."  



	18. I Am Presently In A Phone Booth At The C...

Chapter XVIII  
I Am Presently In A Phone Booth At The Corner Of Walk And Don't Walk  
  
Jane sat nervously in the waiting room outside the Operating Room, the same Operating Room she had encountered when Eddie had been hit by the car. So she knew the walls, the tension, the couch, and even the floor very well.  
  
China was sitting quietly next to her mother, playing with her fingers and impatiently watching as doctors went in and out of the room her father was "sleeping" in. She didn't quite understand what all they were doing to him, but she hadn't liked it when they had cut off all of his hair.  
  
"Jane?" Her friend's whispering voice calmly brought her out of introspection and she slowly turned to her, wiping the tears away from her face.  
  
"Hey Liz," Jane wrapped her arms around her best friend's shoulders, sniffing back more tears as they threatened to press forward.  
  
"How's he doing?" Liz asked, kneeling down in front of Jane and steadying herself by putting a hand on Jane's knee.   
  
"None of the doctors have come out to vomit their grieving at me," She tried to lighten the subject. "So I suppose everything's going fine." Liz smiled at Jane's try and looked over at China, smiling wider.  
  
"Hey there," Liz said, completely worthless at using sign language, so she depended on Jane to translate for her.   
  
China only smiled dutifully back before looking away, her big eyes busied by staring at the door that doctors kept disappearing and reappearing in and out of.   
  
Liz looked away unscathed and looked back to her friend's face.   
  
Jane snorted as something incredulous popped into her mind, "guess what they told us right before Eddie went under?!" After a moment, Liz only raised her eyebrows and shook her head, not knowing the answer.  
  
"This SDC, or SCD, or whatever the hell it is, it's going to take possibly eight days to drain it all out! Eight consecutive days!" She seemed appalled as well as amazed by the fact.   
  
"Eight days?" Liz didn't understand.   
  
"Yes, eight! Well, I mean, he's not going to stay in the operating room throughout it, but he'll have this shunt running out from the back of his head like a…" She couldn't finish her statement, instead she was overcome with tears and she immediately raised her hands to her face, covering her tears.  
  
Liz got teary eyed as well and reached up to wrap her arms around her friend again, freely giving away her comfort.   
  
After a moment, Jane recollected herself and pulled herself away, trying to be strong for China.   
  
She sighed shakily and sat back, Liz taking a seat next to her, sort of sprawled across the back of the couch with her butt balanced on the arm rest. Liz placed her hand on Jane's shoulder, just out of comfort.  
  
Before she knew it, China crawled silently into her mother's lap, standing up on her thighs and looking her straight in the face. Jane held out her hands so that China could hang onto them for balance as she leaned forward and gently kissed her mother on the lips.  
  
'Daddy will be okay.' China signed as she freed her hands from her mother, sitting back down across Jane's thighs.   
  
The thought made a tear come loose from Jane's eye and roll down her cheek. 'You shouldn't cry,' China added with an innocent smile. 'Daddy says that you cry too much.'  
  
Jane couldn't help the rush of tears as she smiled and pulled China toward her chest, hugging her tightly. After what felt like eternity, she finally let go to see China smiling happily up at her.  
  
They sat in silence again, Jane and Liz and China watching the doors intently, Liz stroking Jane's hair, China once again playing with her fingers, and Jane chewing nervously on her bottom lip.  
  
Eventually, Laura came back to check up on everything and was kind enough to turn on the television up in the corner of the room, even though a crappy soap opera was on, it still eased spirit's just a little.  
  
Despite the fact that they couldn't hear it, Jane could make out that the lead character's husband was in a coma in the hospital, and their sister has just given birth to twins, which really don't belong to her husband, but to the milk man who -  
  
Suddenly, Jane got interrupted as a hand was laid on her shoulder, and she turned to see Laura looking down on her.  
  
"What's wrong?" Jane suddenly didn't like the fact that Laura was standing over her, her hand on her shoulder.  
  
"No, Jane, nothing's wrong, I just wanted to show you something…" Laura smiled as she held out her hand toward Jane, helping her up from her seat. "Your friend can come too." Laura smiled casually at Liz, who returned with a smile as she rose.  
  
'You want to see a surprise?' Laura signed to Jane, who nodded happily, hoping with all her little heart that it was going to be her daddy.  
  
But she was concerned when they didn't go into the room where her daddy was, instead, they made their way to an elevator.  
  
As they entered the elevator, Laura turned to everyone with a smile that stretched from ear to ear. "Alright, now I want you to close your eyes."   
  
With some confused looks to each other, mostly by Jane and Liz - China whole-heartedly putting her trust into Laura and squeezing her big eyes shut - eventually closed their eyes as well.  
  
"Okay, now Jane, hold onto your friend's hand, and hold onto China's, there, good." Laura took China's other hand as the elevator lurched to a stop, a small giggle of embarrassment leaking out of Liz, unable to hold it.  
  
Like blind cattle, Laura led the sightless trio out of the elevator and down a hallway that was relatively blank, occasionally looking back to see if anyone was peaking, which no one was.  
  
Smiling to herself and waiting until she almost couldn't take it anymore, Laura pushed open the door and pulled the blind people out quickly into an alien world.  
  
"Okay, open your eyes!" Laura beamed, revealing to the two women that could hear her the fact that they were standing atop the roof of the hospital, the warm night air whispering and flowing around them soothingly.  
  
Jane was a little dumbfounded, but shook China's hand gently, finally getting her to peak and return her mommy's confused looks.   
  
China, Jane, and Liz turned to Laura as if she was crazy, her face still etched with a smile. "It's the night sky, so what?" Liz asked, breaking the awkward silence.  
  
Suddenly, they were astonished as Laura's eyeglasses exploded with color and a soft thunder erupted behind them, and they all turned in unison to discover that the sky was alive with explosions of blue, gold, red, green, and white.  
  
'Look at the fireworks mommy!' China signed ecstatically, her eyes wide with excitement, her little face shining. 'They're so pretty!' Immediately, she ran to the edge of the roof, Laura catching her before she was able to touch the railing.  
  
Laura laughed at China's humorous scream and lifted her up onto her shoulders, giving her an even more grand view as fireworks exploded in the night sky.  
  
Jane sighed shakily as she watched the excitement in China, the way she signed almost too fast for her fingers to catch up to her little mind, and the huge smile splitting her face, reminding Jane of everything.  
  
Suddenly, Liz laid her head on Jane's shoulder, her hand snaking loosely around her shoulder as she pulled her toward her, comforting Jane. "Happy Fourth of July, Jane." Liz whispered.  
  
Jane smiled and responded beneath her breath.   
  
"Happy Fourth of July…Eddie…"  



	19. And Now I Present To You These Two Tragi...

Chapter XIX  
And Now I Present To You These Two Tragic Miracles - I Shall Call Them Man And Woman  
  
"I'm getting use to it," Eddie smiled solidly. "It's not so bad anymore."  
  
"That's good." Ray Brown smiled down at him, his arrogant, pathetic eyes that make you just want to kick the crap out of him with a single glance, looking apathetically toward him.  
  
It was strange to Eddie, coming back to work where he normally towered above his fellow coworkers, but now he was barely more than half their size. And he felt even more aberrant by the fact that he was wearing a hat, but he didn't really want to show off the wounds on his head.   
  
"That's good." Ray repeated, nodding his head as if he needed to reassure himself.   
  
"Well, if you need anything," Ray put his hand up to his ear in mimic of a phone. "Just call me."  
  
With a slap on the back, Ray went on through the hall, on with his merry, pointless life.  
  
"Bull shit I will," Eddie coughed into his hand, covering himself by running his hand over the stubble across his chin.   
  
After clearing himself of all bad thoughts about Ray, Eddie pushed his wheelchair through the hallway, stopped by an unexpected voice.  
  
"Hey Eddie," The stunning, dark woman that had once so blatantly written ASSHOLE on his ad for an apartment after he was kind enough to give her her earrings back was now smiling happily at him.  
  
"Wh…hey Nina." Eddie smiled and nodded in her direction, stopping his advancement down the hall and shifting his bike gloves absently back onto his hands.   
  
"I'm glad to see your doing okay." Nina seemed somewhat edgy, as if they were talking about things they shouldn't be talking about.  
  
"Well, thanks." Eddie said in an equally embarrassed tone, refusing to connect eyes.   
  
"Uh, it was nice seeing you…again…" Eddie forced another smile as he quickly went back to pushing himself down the hall.   
  
"You too," There was almost a longing in her eyes as he left, he could have sworn it was there.  
  
Eddie sighed appreciatively, his office door in sight.   
  
As fast as he could, he rolled in and closed the door behind him, relaxing back into his wheelchair as the tensions of the day washed out through his feet.  
  
Lazily, he rolled behind his desk and slumped down on top of it, closing his eyes. It was his first day back to work and he was already exhausted from just talking to people and pushing himself down the halls.  
  
Suddenly, a pair of hands were at his shoulders and he nearly jumped five feet out of his chair, even though he was forbidden to walk around for at least two more weeks.  
  
There was a small laugh as fingers hit specific pressure points in his shoulder blades and immediately sent him into bliss. Only Jane knew those special spots.  
  
"How's work going?" Jane whispered into his ear, continuing to massage his strained shoulders and back, hitting his favorite spots.  
  
"Terrible," He sighed, his eyes rolled up into the back of his head in pure ecstasy.  
  
Jane smiled and kissed him on the back of the neck, putting muscle into her massage.  
  
Eddie turned to jelly beneath her hands. "Holy shit that feels good…" He pushed back his shoulder blades, beckoning more.  
  
Jane laughed as she pushed him out from his desk, slipping across his lap as she deeply massaged across his shoulders and down across his chest, knowing all the right places.  
  
"Ah, Jane…" He whispered warningly as she began kissing him across the neck, her hands edging toward his shirt buttons and fingering them curiously.   
  
"Relax," Jane said calmly between kisses, "I'm just playing." She smiled provocatively. "You've had a hard day at work, you deserve a break."  
  
"I agree." Eddie finally submitted and allowed her hand to slip beneath the one undone button in his shirt, slowly trailing his chest. Eventually, she gave up kissing him and instead laid her head on his neck, nuzzling it.  
  
"Oh, guess what I bought you?" Jane asked with a devilish grin, lifting her head and turning behind her for what she had bought him.  
  
Eddie raised an eyebrow, then waited to see what she would pull out of the plastic bag he hadn't noticed on top of his desk. How she had carried the bag into his office without him hearing it, he had no idea.  
  
Her smile widened as she brought out a pint of Dulce de Leche Caramel Haagen-Dazs ice cream.   
  
Eddie threw back his head and laughed, shaking his head in disbelief as she opened it up in front of him, taking her finger and running it through the ice cream, gathering an augment of sticky caramelized dessert.   
  
"Are you trying to tell me something?" Eddie laughed as she only smiled, bringing it closer to his lips, before allowing his mouth to close over her finger, taking the first bite.  
  
Then she dug out another finger-full of golden, gooey ice cream and stuck it into her mouth, leaning over and kissing him deeply. The ice cream from both their mouths mixed openly, becoming a liquid transfusion of love from one enriched adult to another.   
  
"Have you ever thought of why we're together?" Eddie asked as he broke away from Jane's lips, catching a loose trickle of melted ice cream on his chin with his finger, pushing it back up into his mouth.  
  
"What do you mean?" Jane asked back, making him take another finger of ice cream just for the hell of it.  
  
"I mean, why - of all the guys in the world - did you choose me?" Eddie said as she withdrew her finger from his lips, swallowing it down.  
  
Jane jutted out her bottom lip in thought, sliding her hand beneath the undone button on his shirt to peruse her husband's chest again.  
  
"I don't know, I suppose…your devilishly handsome looks," She smiled, continuing when he laughed lightly and leaned his head back in his chair. "Your incredible body…but mostly because I wanted to throw you off of that white horse of yours before you got a nosebleed."  
  
"Oo." Eddie acted as if she'd just hit him. "Touché."   
  
"Naw," Jane redeemed herself, "It's because you showed me the truth about men, even if you did have to step on my feet and prod me in the ass. You showed me that men aren't bulls, or cows, or any other form of quadruped, they're just men."   
  
Jane smiled and slipped back onto his shoulder, her hand stationary under his shirt, the pint of Haagen-Dazs sitting safely on his desk.  
  
Eddie smiled and leaned his head against Jane's, his eyes slowly sliding shut.  
  
"Moo."  



	20. Maybe That's Why We Hold On As Hard As W...

Chapter XX  
Maybe That's Why We Hold On As Hard As We Do. We Can Never Believe That Such A Miracle Could Ever Happen To Us Twice. But It Does.  
  
As this, being the last chapter of this particular story, I am very sorry to say that it is coming to close. Your reviews and constant opinions have helped to boost my inditing efforts and excel in something that I normally would not look toward as a part-time activity. Gosh, look at me, I'm getting all mushy…I'm such a sap…   
But really, you guys have meant so much to me that I wish I could go to all your people's houses and hug each and every one of you…but since I am unable to do that…I would just like to give shout out to those who stuck with my story until the bitter end.  
  
Khaki: for your inspiration and guiding tactics that always made me do better than half-ass and showing me things that I would otherwise never have the energy to learn about…  
  
Rach 8^)3: for always being on top of the game and trying to review back as quickly as possible for my untimely updates…you'll always be my ever-faithful fan…   
  
samantha: for never giving up hope that a quirky love-sequence would come along at any moment and always made me appreciate the fact that I even decided to post this up on the internet…  
  
karen: for your first review that helped to turn this story into what it is right now, I couldn't have done it without you…  
  
And finally, Jen: for always checking my story each and every day just to see if I had made an update yet and always posting a review mostly within the same day…  
  
And even if your name is not one of the five above, your contributions to my story have filled me heart and soul and have pushed me to branch off and continue on with other more simple stories in this same subject…but finally, I'd like to thank you all for putting up with my Eddie-torture, goodnight and I hope your life is like toilet paper: long and useful!!!  
  
(\^. .^/)*MOO* (\^. .^/)  
{*_*} *MOO* {*_*}  
  
(FYI: That's two cows. The "." represent eyes while the "*" represent the cows' nostrils!! (Can you see it?!?!?!?))  
  
  
"Jeez honey, I am soooo sorry," Jane objected as she stepped into the apartment, even before Eddie could turn around from the burners on the oven.  
  
"I couldn't get a cab and then the rain slowed me down and…" She sulked mostly to herself as she hung up her dripping raincoat on the coat rack, removing her shoes and throwing her briefcase on the floor.  
  
The weather outside the apartment was absolutely atrocious, the sky was a forbidding dark gray and then rain came down so hard that it seemed as though it could possibly break through the windows.   
  
She looked up when no sounds came from Eddie, and had expected that he had fallen out of his chair or something. But he only smiled back at her, one eyebrow raised in incredulity.   
  
"It's okay, China and I have been hanging out making dinner." He turned away from Jane, back towards his concealed recipe boiling over the oven. Jane's ambition turned away from apologizing and into coaxing out his forgiveness, not understanding why he was uncommonly mellow about it.  
  
She walked silently up behind him in her damp socks, closing her eyes and taking in a delicious scent that was familiar, but unnamed.   
  
"And what is Mr. Connoisseur preparing for this evening's banquet?" Jane laughed seductively and placed her lips against the smooth skin behind Eddie's jaw, kissing it gently.  
  
Eddie laughed and stirred what was on the stove, adding a French accent to his deep voice as though it would make his secret recipe that much more coveted. "I call it: Macaroni and cheese."  
  
Jane laughed and patted him lightly on the shoulder, shaking her head at his humor.  
  
"I hear four out of five chefs prefer it…" Eddie added with a smile, turning to Jane as she walked toward the living room, picking up stray magazines from the countertop as she went.  
  
"Where'd you read that?" Jane tossed her hair back from her face, smiling up at him. "Martha Stewart magazine?"  
  
"No," Eddie held in his smile in as he responded. "The Costco Coupon book."  
  
Jane threw her head back and laughed, dropping the collected magazines down on the coffee table, only to be found by a tugging hand at her shirt.   
  
'Mommy! Mommy!' China's big eyes met Jane's with a dazzling shine, despite the disgusting weather outside. 'Come see, come see!' China signed ecstatically.  
  
China grabbed her by the hand and led her into the back room, the one that had the giant hole in the wall that Eddie had finally gotten around to fixing just before he asked for Jane's hand in marriage, but was now China's personal room.   
  
China left Jane at the door as she got down on her belly and stuck her arms under the bed, searching out something. Jane was puzzled, then surprised as there was a meek sound and China pulled out something fuzzy from the bed.  
  
'Look what daddy brought us!' China signed happily, gingerly handing over the fuzzy ball of black and white fur.   
  
The little kitten meowed awkwardly and stared up at Jane with huge, green eyes, it's little pink nose shining through her little, round face. It was completely black, except for blotches of white around half of it's face and one of its front paws.  
  
'What are we going to name it?' Jane signed as she handed the kitten back to China, who set it on the floor. They watched it stumble a few times on new legs, before falling over and looking up at them in surprise.  
  
'Daddy says we should name it Sushi…' China seemed puzzled. 'Mommy? What's "Sushi"?'  
  
'Well baby, that's the name of our new cat…' Jane smiled as she led China out of the room, the little kitten following haphazardly behind, trying to pounce on China's untied shoelace.  
  
"I see you have added to the family." Jane pronounced as she came back out into the living room, watching Eddie as he turned away in almost embarrassment. He had the dishes set out and was just beginning to pour the mac n' cheese into the separate bowls.   
  
"I just thought China needed something to play with…" Eddie tested, not chancing a look up as he scooped out the gooey orange noodles.   
  
"And you named her Sushi?"   
  
"You don't like it?" Eddie seemed crushed.  
  
"No…well…shouldn't cats have names like Mitten or Fluffy?" She never really had any cats as a child, so she had no clue.  
  
"Come on Jane," Eddie snorted with laughter, "have a little fun!" He proudly threw the last bit of the mac n' cheese into his dish and threw the serving ladle single-handedly into the sink on the far counter.  
  
"Score!" He mimicked the screaming of the crowd and put his hands up like field goals, gently bending his head back like a champion.   
  
Jane crossed her hands over her chest and tried to look cross, but her placid face kept breaking with a smirk.   
  
Eddie turned back to her with an evil smile, "guess that means you owe me another cheer, Tomcat…" he popped a loose noodle into his mouth and scrunched up his nose like an angry cat as he chewed.  
  
Suddenly, China was jumping up and down in the living room, and when her parents turned their attention towards her, she slapped her hands across her wide, embarrassed smile.  
  
'What's the matter?' Jane signed, taking only one step forward. Her daughter was smiling, so she didn't seem to be in trouble.  
  
'Well…' China was reluctant to explain for fear that they may be mad. 'The kitty was playing with my shoe when she…maid a mess on the carpet…' She smiled broadly and began to laugh hysterically, falling back into the big chair behind her.  
  
Eddie sucked in his breath as Jane turned back to him, her hands on her hips and her eyes buried beneath her eyebrows. He smiled and tried to laugh casually, but his smile dropped as she nonchalantly approached him.  
  
"Looks like that cheer's going to have to wait until later, Mojo…" She placed the tip of her finger against his nose. "I have to go get some carpet cleaner and a kitty box…" She smiled and leaned down, kissing his cheek and rising to walk toward the door.  
  
"Which really should be your job…but since you're sick…" She smiled with new black mail as she walked toward the front door. "You owe me...big time…"  
  
Just as she pulled on her still-damp coat, China was standing in front of her, her little eyes filled with worry. 'Sushi didn't mean to make a mess.' She tried to cover for the cat. "She's not in trouble, is she?"   
  
'Don't worry baby,' Jane stooped and ran her hand over China's hair and looked up to Eddie, smiling once more before getting a goodbye kiss from China on the cheek.   
  
As she rose to shift her coat around her shoulders, she signed back without taking her eyes off Eddie's priceless face. 'Daddy's the one that's in trouble…" And was out the door.  
  
*MOO*  
  
"Taxi!" Jane yelled, waving her arm at the checkered yellow cab driving aimlessly through the water towards her. She stepped back from the curb as it sent up a huge crest of muddy water.  
  
The driver was a fat Indian man with a large, bulbous, turban wrap on his head and a gold, ornament, crown sitting on his dashboard. A thick, black beard rested against his chest and his clothes were worn as though they had been thrown on with a pitchfork.   
  
"Hi," Jane said automatically, unintentionally stepping back as a waft of putrid stench exited the open door. It was immediately wrestled down by the rain but Jane still shook her head at the intensity. She just wanted to get out of the rain, no matter who with.  
  
"Jane!" A voice came from behind.  
  
She turned from the cab door to see Eddie pushing his wheelchair frantically out of the door to catch her, only his tee shirt and pants keeping him from the pouring rain.  
  
"Eddie! What are you doing?" She couldn't believe that he was coming out into the weather so ill prepared and vulnerable.  
  
"Lady?" The taxi driver called out at her from the car with a thick Indian accent, obviously not a man of much patients.   
  
"Just, hold on, please, for one minute." Jane pleaded, shaking her hands at him in justification for this awkward moment. The fat cab driver sighed agitatedly and nodded reluctantly, turning back to watch the road dance with raindrops.  
  
"What are you doing out here?" Jane proclaimed as she began to come toward Eddie, but stopped when Eddie held up his hand.  
  
"Hold on," He paused, taking a deep breath and pushed himself up from his wheelchair with extreme agitation, something he was not suppose to do.  
  
"No, Eddie, don't-" But it was too late, he was already standing awkwardly up from his wheelchair, with the rain pouring off his head and making his shirt and pants stick against him like a second skin.  
  
Her eyes couldn't help but trail down the smooth curves of his chest and thighs, sending a slight chill up her spine, but still, she didn't like the look of pain on his face as he stood there.  
  
Jane cupped her hands around her mouth and covered her eyes in anxiety, her feet pacing unnervingly on the slick sidewalk as she watched Eddie cringe and sink down onto one knee.  
  
"Jane," Eddie blinked the rain away from his eyes, trying to get out what he was about to say, even with the rain pounding against his still-wounded head and causing pain to shoot down through his spine.  
  
She didn't understand what was going on, so she just held her breath.  
  
There was an awkward moment of silence, and it seemed like the rain has suddenly eased up a bit out of appreciation for the moment. This was a very important time for both of them, and Eddie wanted it to be perfect.  
  
"I want to start our lives over again…the last one didn't do it for me and I want this one to be different. No more bulls, or cows, or quadrupeds with love problems. I just want to be normal." He reached back into the pocket on his wheelchair.   
  
"Jane Alden," He presented a small, black box from the pocket and opened it up, his fingers shielding its innards from the pouring rain. "Will you marry me…again?"  
  
Jane couldn't help as a rush of tears burned forward in her eyes and she swallowed the rock in her throat. Watching as Eddie slowly and haphazardly rose to his feet, flinching slightly at the movement.  
  
Jane ignored the cab driver's detestable grunts and approached Eddie, looking inside the box to see a two-karat diamond ring sparkly brightly within satin padding.   
  
She glanced up to Eddie, who looked down and picked up the ring, slipping it gently onto her finger and pushing it up against the last one that she wore.   
  
And all Jane could do was smile through a cascade of tears that rushed warmly down her cheeks and unexpectedly jump into Eddie's arms, through a rush of rich emotions.   
  
Eddie stumbled backwards a few steps before catching himself and smiling as she wrapped her legs around his waist for leverage and put her head on his shoulder, whispering her response into his ear.  
  
"Yes…always…"   
  
*MOO*   



End file.
